Haven
by Kat Laleh
Summary: In the school of extraordinary capabilities, Violet is a vastly normal human. Nyx has the opposite dilemna, her Mythic powers so dangerous, she is shunned even in Haven. And then there is Alexander, the charming new student with a terrible secret. R
1. Chapter 1 D Connor Institute

**hello everyone! the mythics live again in the third (and i beleive final) installment of their story. as before, it is completley new with totally new characters. the old ones appear, but they're not the primary focus. you dont need to read the other two stories to understand this one. it would just help for the old characters**

Chapter 1- The D. Connor Institute of Excellence

Violet was, in many ways, normal. There were no skeletons hiding in her closet or radioactive spiders lying dormant in her past. Unfortunately, in the D. Connor Institute of Excellence, being normal was the last thing she wanted to be.

The D. Connor Institute of Excellence was, on paper, a school for gifted young students without the money to afford private schools to challenge their abilities. It was kind of like that, in truth. The tuition was low enough that almost any student could attend, and if, by chance, a student didn't have enough money, there was an obscene amount of scholarships available. They didn't have to be a genius to attend though. They didn't even need to be impeccably smart. All they needed to be was a Mythic.

Violet had white-blond hair and colorless skin that gave the impression of her being an albino until you saw her eyes. Wide-set, with the habit of being narrowed in a squint, they were the color of dark amber honey. Atop her small nose balanced a pair of glasses that she just changed the prescription for, but already seemed to be too weak. Despite the insane necessity that she had to eat at a constant and uninterrupted rate, her body was strangely skeletal, and hollowed, like a starving child's. Violet certainly looked like a Mythic.

This was where Violet's problem arose. She _wasn't_ a Mythic. She was disgustingly, boringly, mundanely normal. The only thing that kept her at Haven, the nickname for this incredible school, was her unusual appearance. When she was thirteen she unceremoniously appeared at Haven's front door; the founders of the school had immediately thought of her as a Mythic. The lack of extraordinary things to happen around her was seconded by her rather extraordinary entrance. (For she did, quite literally, appear. Out of no where. This was uncommon, even for Haven.)

This is what she thought as she rested her chin on her hand, lurking in a far back corner of the library. She knew John had made a mistake when accepting her into Haven, and had a funny feeling that he only kept her because she had nowhere else to go. Not that that was very unusual in the school.

"Hey, Violet!"

Violet winced at the sound of her name, looking over her shoulder to see who was calling for her. It was Tara, who had the funny habit of reading minds. While Tara couldn't exactly help that she had the power to intrude privacy like no other human being could even comprehend, it didn't make it any less uncomfortable. She couldn't even attempt to skeeve-off on homework for her class. Not when she was reading her guilty thoughts as she thought them.

"Hi, Tara. I was coming to your class, I swear. Yesterday I just…" _forgot my homework and didn't feel like making up an excuse you would shoot down. I mean, oops! Stop thinking about that! Great, now she knows I'm thinking about something I don't want her to know. I'm hungry. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers…_Violet had discovered a long time ago that by cramming her brain with random nursery rhymes, it blocked out her own guilty thoughts. Of course, Tara knew by now that she only used this when she had guilty thoughts to hide.

Tara was one of the Orphans. While most students, after turning eighteen, continued with their lives, the Orphans had stuck around to work at the school. Since the school had been originally founded to form a haven for them, they felt it only appropriate for them to return the favor. This made Violet think… something very incriminating that she covered up with "Old Mother Hubbard".

"Cute, Violet. Very cute. Just make sure it doesn't happen again. Break is almost over. You should start getting ready for class."

Violet watched Tara leave the library suspiciously, singing "Ring a Round the Rosy" in her head the whole time. It wasn't until after she had left the room (Tara's mind-reading only stretched as far as a couple feet), that she cursed fluently. How long had Tara been in 'listening' distance? Funny thing, she really didn't want to be kicked out of the only place she knew because of her lack of powers.

Which it was why it was a very good thing to skip Tara's physics class whenever possible. Unfortunately, today didn't look to be one of those days. She would be singing "Humpty Dumpty" for her next hour.

Tossing some books into her bag, and straightening out the crisp white blouse and blue skirt that was uniform, she headed down the winding stairs to the main floor and proceeded to dart through the freaks of the world to her physics class.

* * *

Nyx saw Violet walking out of the library and trotted over to meet her, her chunky black combat boots clunking from over her black and white striped tights. While Nyx loved Haven more than words could rightly say, white long-sleeved blouse and plain pleated blue skirt was not her style. At all. Really, the only thing she liked about the uniform was the school crest emblazoned on a patch stuck to the left side of the blouse. A sideways eight, the Greek symbol for eternity, rounded by a serpent, a bird of prey, a bull and an all seeing eye. Each picture represented one of the founders.

"Hi, Nyx," Violet muttered miserably, absently brushing her white-blond hair into a floppy bun.

"Aren't I supposed to be the depressed one?" Nyx asked, innocently. Nyx, one of the few students who were actually called by her Mythic name, regretted her harshness immediately. "What's the matter?"

Violet shrugged. "I'm running out of nursery rhymes and Tara won't get out of my head. I swear it's like she's actually trying to get me out of this school."

"Well isn't she? You're not really a Mythic, you just look funny. This is a school for Mythics."

Violet glared at her, sullenly. "Whose side are you on anyway?"

Nyx shrugged. "My side." Nyx, birth-name Nicole, was not born from a mythological creature. She had the characteristics of a deity, surprisingly common here in Haven. In legend, Nyx was the daughter of Chaos and the embodiment of night. In real-life, Nyx was the daughter of a computer programmer in California and a little gothy. Her dark hair was accented by streaks of blue, purple, and pink, artfully arranged around her pale face. A dust of freckles covered her straight nose and round cheeks, but her dark, sunken eyes took the cuteness from it. She was shorter than her friend, and much curvier to Violet's wraith-like frame. "Why is it so important for you to be a Mythic, anyway? I mean, not all of us have kick-ass powers like the founders do. Look at me. My second form is a shadow, a shadow that's only convenience is to move fast. I can see in the dark. Big whoop, about three quarters of Haven can do that. I can conveniently extinguish all forms of light, which sucks for the remaining quarter of Haven. And…"

A shout of surprise came from the balcony above and caught her attention. A young boy, probably only a second year student, had been leaning on the railing. The railing had randomly broken, sending him tumbling down two stories of empty air. Thankfully, a Harpy had seen him fall, and plucked him from midair before he hit the ground. Had he hit the ground, it would have been a very messy job for one of the Orphans to put together.

Nyx gave Violet a meaningful look, giving her an exaggerated bow. "No applause for my third power please. Chaos following my every move is really not all its choked up to be."

Violet laughed a little, properly chastised. They pushed forward through the crowd, ignoring the rude comments that Nyx should come with a warning label and Violet shouldn't even be here. There were no powers and there were sucky powers. Violet and Nyx happened to have those two positions filled to the extreme.

And so, the two outcasts took their place tucked in the back corner of the classroom. The farther away from Tara, the more people between them and her, the less chance they had of her reading their mind. Just in case, though…

_Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…_

* * *

"So which one of your qualities do you think will benefit the Institute the most," Isabel asked, pulling her favorite overstuffed armchair closer the new student.

Alexander shifted uncomfortably in his own chair. It was a bit too squishy for his taste. "Well, I've never killed anybody," he said, hoping that the light-hearted answer would be enough of a reply. Isabel smiled softly, but did not look impressed. "I don't know really. I mean, I always considered myself as the loyal sort, but just coming here…" He paused a moment, looking into the principal's cool gray eyes. She didn't look very old, in her late twenties at the very best, and her curly hair was pulled into an elegant knot on the back of her head. He had noticed when she had been walking to move the chairs, that she had an unusual, almost unnatural grace to her stride. And then she stumbled, cursing about her near-sightedness. She was looking at him expectantly now, no glasses on her face to mar its serpentine shape. "Do you know you have faculty here who originally went to school here, and now teach?"

"I'm aware of that, yes," Isabel said.

"So you also know that of the five hundred or more odd students that you have, one of them could, at any time, rat out this school for what it really is?"

"I'm aware of that as well," Isabel continued, waiting to see his point.

"But none of them have. This school has been functioning for fifteen years and no outsider is any the wiser on what it is. That's because your students and faculty are so loyal. I can only wish… no, hope… that I'm that loyal, too." He looked at the principal expectantly when he was finished, waiting for her response.

A slow, lazy smile spread across her face, making her seem younger and brighter. "I think you will make a fine addition to our school, Alexander. Now just one question. Are you aware of what you are?"

Alexander nodded quickly. He had thought all this out prior to this interview so the question didn't surprise him. "I'm Hermes. All I can really do is speak to other people without actually using my voice. They can't say anything back to me. Oh, and I can hover a little. That's fun."

Isabel nodded slowly, resting her chin in her hands. "May I see an example?"

Alexander had thought this out as well. _I'd really like to be accepted into your school._ He thought, pushing the statement toward Isabel.

Isabel nodded, and proceeded to create a schedule.

* * *

_Five more minutes. Five more minutes. Humpty dumpty sat on a wall. Five more minutes. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall_. Violet head was likely to explode if she said that rhyme again.

"…and that means the velocity of the falling object as applicable to y is…" Tara paused a moment, looking around the room. "Violet?"

Violet narrowed her eyes at the teacher, knowing that she knew she didn't know the answer, because she knew she wasn't thinking about physics in the first place. "What's the falling object?"

Tara turned toward the chalkboard, ready to highlight another lesson. "Had you been paying attention, Violet, you would know that it doesn't matter what the falling object is because it will still hit the ground at the same time despite its weight or…"

"Then my falling object is a piece of paper," Violet interrupted, smugly, "and the air displacement of the paper will prevent it from hitting the ground in a straight line, which means the velocity of the falling object doesn't have a constant acceleration, which means…"

"Assume you're on the moon," Tara broke in. "There is no air to create displacement."

Violet liked Tara. She really did. She was a hard teacher who challenged her students and pushed them to the next level. This was admirable, so long as she wasn't the student being pushed. "If I'm on the moon there's no gravity and…" A monotonous moan filled the air, having the magical effect of making all the students jump out of their seats, grab their books and head for the door. None was faster than Violet and Nyx.

Crossing the courtyard was the easiest way to get to their next class. Unfortunately, it meant braving the freezing gray coldness of a mid-January winter to get there. The layout of the building was simple, once they learned how to navigate around the usual distractions of people shape changing, disappearing, or spontaneously combusting. Three floors curled around the courtyard, containing the general core classes. Four towers spiraled at each corner, one for the boys' dorm, one for the girls' dorm and two for faculty housing. The courtyard was split with a labyrinth of flagstone paths, with a roped off area for practicing and controlling more violent powers. Nyx and Violet knew, from experience, to generally avoid that area.

"Is it really so much to ask for to not have that woman constantly on my back about using my abilities!" Violet huffed miserably, her breath coming out in a frosty puff before her.

Nyx wasn't paying attention, too busy warily scanning her surroundings for forms of inevitable chaos. "See that flagstone right there?"

Violet nodded, for it looked to be coming loose from the grouting.

"Five bucks says something happens to it that causes a catastrophe."

Violet looked at Nyx dubiously. "Are you serious? I don't even have five dollars." Funny thing about going to a boarding school was a fresh lack of part-time jobs to support her daily spending habits. "How do you even know if a catastrophe happens, it isn't just an accident?"

Nyx shrugged. "My fingers get tingly when it's my fault." They had stopped moving, halted right above the incriminating stone. "And they're buzzing like crazy. See." She poked Violet in the arm, giving her a sort of static shock.

"Okay, five bucks says that a catastrophe happens, but it has nothing to do with this flagstone."

"You're on," she replied, holding out her hand to shake. Violet, forgetting about the static shock from contact with one finger, grasped her hand tightly. An electric shock ran up her arms, causing her to yelp in pain.

At this exact moment, a timid first-year student walked by. Startled by the cry of pain, he jumped, bumping into Violet who stubbed her toe on the loose flagstone.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Son of a bad word!" She hopped up and down clutching her foot as her eyes watered in pain. Blinded by the stinging tears, she stumbled to the ground. "Are you happy now?" she asked Nyx, angrily. A dangerous side-effect to having a best friend followed by chaos was the almost daily implication of pain. Violet really didn't like pain, especially in the cold, when it made the pain seem ten times worse.

Nyx watched the terrified first-year scurry away, looking disappointed. "No. I expected a lot more. That wasn't really catastrophe worthy."

"Tell that to my big toe."

Nyx rubbed her arms to get warmth back into them. She reached down to help her friend up, but something happened.

The rock exploded.

* * *

Isabel told him he could start today if he really wanted to. Alexander was placed in a group class, with abilities that were supposedly similar to his. (He could barely suppress a little mental snicker at that thought. What luck that Isabel had actually believed his story about Hermes.) Since they traveled together through the classes, besides for electives, he would be able to follow the rest of class without getting too lost.

He crossed the large courtyard at a brisk pace, pulling the lapels of his light jacket higher on his neck. He hadn't actually expected it to be cold when he got here, and especially wasn't expecting the change in his eyes. The elders warned him of this, of course, but he was young and didn't always listen to what they said.

He felt dirty, walking among all these Mythics. His kind was a purer, less animalistic breed, known as the Nosophorus. And everyone knew that the Nosophorus and Mythics hated each other. Or at least, he thought they did.

When the elders had assigned him his task, they warned him of the Founders' cleverness. Alexander remained stubbornly unimpressed. Isabel couldn't even see through his tricks, and she didn't seem at all suspicious of his visual appearance. It was like she had seen it before! But that was impossible. No other Nosophorus ever crossed over, and the only reason he was doing it was for personal health. (In short, a desperate cry of rebellion against his parents). Oh right, and that stupid task for the elders, but that shouldn't take long at all.

How did Mythics stand this cold! His fingers were already numb, and his eyes were blurred with tears as the wind stung them. His first class was all the way across the courtyard. Why hadn't he thought to go _around_ in the nice warm building.

He mildly noticed a bit of a scuffle ahead on the path. A girl with streaks of rainbow color in her black hair was snickering to herself as her friend hopped up and down, clutching her foot. As he walked closer, he saw something that surprised him.

The skinny girl with platinum hair wasn't a Mythic. She wasn't even human. She was a Nosophorus.

He gagged in disgust, then lost control of his tricks. The rock exploded.

And something made him stumble forward.

The exploding rock had a surprising amount of force. Nyx was thrown back, landing painfully on her rear. A shower of dust and pebbles fell around them. "What the hell was that?"

"Nyx!" Came Violet's garbled response. She coughed as dust settled in her throat. "An exploding _rock_?"

"That wasn't me! I swear!" Her fingers had stopped tingling after Violet had jammed her toe.

Violet stood up carefully, brushing dust off her uniform. The last few stragglers to the next class had gathered around their disaster sight, laughing openly. "Nice job Nyx. That's twice in one day. A new record." Amanda, Mythic name Brizo (beautiful charmer, shape changer), laughed. Her posse laughed with her.

Nyx was about to say something in reply, but Violet beat her to it. The last thing they all needed was detention for Nyx's violent nature. "Very funny, Amanda. There's nothing to see here, and you're late for class." She was too, come to think of it, and it was Arts and Theatre with Raven. That was her favorite class. Damn it.

Nyx's fingers started buzzing. "Violet, why don't you come stand by me. Quickly."

Violet scurried backwards, and not a moment later there came a shout from an unknown voice. "Look out!"

In a sort of domino effect, a boy came clambering forward, knocking over Amanda and her posse.

Through their fits of laughter, as the boy stood up, blushing fiercely and apologizing constantly, Nyx noticed his appearance. "Dude, you look weirder than she does." She nodded toward Violet.

"Hey!"

Amanda rolled her eyes, and beckoned for the rest of her group to continue through the courtyard. Violet and Nyx waved innocently as they left.

"I'm really sorry about that. The rock, I don't know what happened. I've never done something like that before, and then falling into everyone…"

"Wait, you mean you made the rock explode?" Nyx asked.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but…"

Nyx interrupted him with a shout of triumph to her friend. "Hah! I told you the rock wasn't my fault. That's five bucks."

"What! No way, you said you would make a catastrophe happen around the rock. He made the catastrophe happen. If anything, I'm paying him five bucks."

"His name's Alexander," he interjected mildly.

"What about your toe, then?" Nyx pressed, glaring.

"That's hardly catastrophe worthy. I call it more or an unfortunate occurrence." They continued to squabble, beginning to continue up the path, ignoring Alexander all together. This bothered Alexander greatly, for he just had to know what another Nosophorus was doing in a Mythics' school. He was under the impression that he was the only one to cross over in years.

"Hey, wait a second. That's it?"

Violet turned, confused. The likeness in their appearance was astounding, almost creepy. He was unusually tall and very thin, almost skeletal. He had the same white blond hair and colorless skin, but his eyes were a riveting shade of amethyst, as if two of the world's brightest amethysts had been placed in his eyes. "What's it?"

"Aren't you going to apologize?"

Nyx scoffed. "For what?"

"One of you made me fall. I want an apology for it."

Violet rolled her eyes. She and Nyx enjoyed their social standings of social outcasts; the expectations were low and the perks were many. The last thing they needed was someone trying to intercede on their anti-polularness. "Oh, get lost. We're late for class."

"Where's your next class?"

"Arts and Theatre."

Alexander smiled smugly. "Excellent. Mine is too."

What were the odds?


	2. Chapter 2 Arts and Theatre

**well then, after a staggering two reviews (i think my stories are slowly degressing in popularity) i've decided to post a new chapter. not sure why, as no one seems to be interested in the mythics anymore. i'm working on something completley new though! i just have to finish this, bc i left it at such a terrible cliffhanger. just note though... you DO NOT need to read the PREVIOUS TWO stories to understand THIS ONE. it is a new plot with new characters... there i'm finsihed**

**thanks again to the two who did review. i heart thee!**

Chapter 2- Arts and Theatre

It was impossible not to love Arts and Theatre. Raven was the kind of teacher who could make the class seem like mere seconds, and for those seconds have all the students in fits of laughter. Violet was not alone in her vouch for Arts and Theatre as her favorite class. Violet just liked to think she was much better at it. (She _was_ a resident human in a Mythic school, something that took a surprisingly extensive amount of acting to retain.)

Unfortunately, Alexander, who attached himself to the two like a flea to a dog, managed to disorient Violet's usual reverence for the class.

"Do you want a prize for most annoying new kid," Nyx hissed through her teeth as she sidled into her usual seat, combat boots clunking in pent up violence. Violet thought it necessary for Alexander's benefit to sit between the two, for it seemed liable that Nyx would eat him if he got too close.

"You're late," Raven scolded, before he could reply.

"Not our fault," Nyx replied automatically, glaring pointedly to Alexander.

Raven gave Violet a questioning look (for Raven knew her students well, and knew Violet to be the sensible one of the pair) and Violet just rolled her eyes. This was the equivalent to saying _long story, don't ask. _Raven decided to go with that advice. "Just make sure it doesn't happen again." She turned to address the rest of the class. "Alright, everyone. I have a challenge for you today. In groups of three," she said, with an added wink to Violet and Nyx at that equivocal word of value, "that I will assign, I want you to make a skit." She allowed her class to relax for a moment in a sense of security before hitting them with the challenge. "The catch is, you will not be able to speak in this skit, and it must be on the subject that I assign you. You and the rest of your group have five minutes after I give you your subject to prepare your skit. The rest of the class has to guess what subject I gave you."

Amanda raised her hand from the back of the room, flipping her chestnut brown curls over her shoulder. "So you mean this is a kind of glorified charades?"

Raven nodded to her. "That's right, Brizo," she said, with specific emphasis on Amanda's Mythic name. Properly chastised, Brizo changed back to human, still possessing the looks of a super model, but lacking the ethereal ability of charm. "In many ways it is like charades, except I'm letting you use your powers to help portray your subject. This is counting as a quiz grade, so if you go over five minutes or don't use your _combined_ talents, it will begin to deduct from your grade. Understand?" There were general nods of affirmation around the room. "Amanda, Kyle and Brian, you're up first." She beckoned them forward.

"Can we use our second form?" Kyle asked, hopefully.

Raven nodded. "Just remember, use your powers against any of your classmates, and you have me to deal with."

No one needed a second invitation. Quite suddenly, every student in the room took on subtle or extravagant changes as the altered form. Kyle developed riveting lime green hair and scales that crawled up his arms, as his Mythic from was Triton. Brian sprouted hooves and a tail as Centaur. And of course, Amanda was now even more ethereally perfect than before.

"What's our subject," Brizo asked Raven, and Raven noticed the hint of Control in her voice. She was imploring for an easy topic.

"Asparagus," Raven whispered, in a convenient ventriloquist voice that not even those with supernatural hearing could decipher. Control did not work on a Siren, for they had too much of a Controller in themselves. Her students didn't know that, though. "You have five minutes."

Violet looked over to her best friend, who had suddenly ceased to exist, replaced by a dark Nyx-shaped shadow. "What am I going to do?" She wasn't worried about not having a Mythic form; lots of kids here were Mythics without having a second shape. She was scared about her inconvenient lack of powers to exhibit.

Nyx turned and winked. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." Violet's chair broke.

Sprawled across the floor with a loud thud of skinny rear end meeting marble, Violet glared at Nyx. "Jesus, Nyx, can't you go ten _minutes_ without breaking something," she hissed through clenched teeth, her cheeks burning in embarrassment as the class erupted into laughter around her.

Nyx never got the chance to reply for Raven retook control of her class. "Alright, alright, that's enough. Violet, take another chair from the back. First group, you're up."

Brizo, Triton and Centaur hopped onto the raised section of the room used as a stage. The moment Brizo flipped her hair over her shoulder and lifted pointer finger in the air to signify one word, the class suddenly felt an odd compelling urge to understand whatever she was going to say. Green-haired Triton gave the class a wink, and his body suddenly shrunk in form, turning into a puddle on the stage. Centaur lifted one of his massive hooves, slamming it onto the floorboard by Triton's liquid form. As he catapulted through the air, Brizo threw her hands up, using her force of charm to make Triton's liquid form want to become a long slender stalk.

"Uh… a tree."

"Pencil!"

"Is it a carrot?"

Centaur pawed the ground with his hooves at this point, signifying a close guess, and Brizo glared at the liquid Triton in front of her, creating smaller details in the sculpture.

Violet grinned. "It's asparagus."

Triton solidified in shape, pointing to the girl. "That's it. She's got it."

Raven nodded, a smile on her face. "Very good. That's a perfect score, but I would appreciate it if next time you didn't feel the need to break the floor. Claire, Justin and Lindsay- you're next."

So it continued through the class. The general atmosphere of the room was giddy and drunk on laughter and silliness. Raven picked challenging topics to portray, and that they had to incorporate all three of their powers to get a perfect score would help them as they grew. They didn't realize that, though. All they knew was this was the best game of charades they had ever played.

When the standing group sat down, slightly forlorn (they had gotten points taken off because Artemis has simply changed into the topic of a spider, without waiting to incorporate her groups talents), Raven looked around for her next victims. She had a particularly juicy subject in mind.

"Nyx, Violet and Alexander- up here."

Nyx glared at Alexander, as if it was his fault that Raven had put him in her group. "Now, now, Nyx," Raven scolded, gently, bright red hair falling into her eyes. "I'm sure whatever he's done can't be that bad."

"I haven't done anything," Alexander protested.

Raven ignored him. "Your topic is vampires. Good luck."

They had five minutes to prepare. "Alright, what's your power?" Nyx asked Alexander.

"I'm Hermes," he replied automatically. "Telepathy and hovering."

Violet gave him an odd look. "You mean flying?"

"No, I can only go a few feet off the ground."

Nyx's hand closed with her forehead. The task was hopeless. Violet had no powers, Alexander's sucked, and hers were useless in the situation. "Alright, I'll make the lights go out. Dark is kind of vampire-esque."

"I can project the word to everyone, that way we won't have to act," Alexander suggested. "That just leaves you. What's your power?"

Violet glanced around the room, nervously, a blush creeping onto her pale cheeks. "Uh… mine won't be any good here." Everyone suspected that Violet was a lone human in Haven, but they had no evidence to back up their claims. Only Nyx knew for a fact, and she, understanding how much it meant to belong somewhere, wouldn't tell anyone.

"Well, maybe you're wrong. You never know," he pressed.

"Yeah, you never know," Nyx agreed, with an impish grin. Violet glared at her with enough force that could have roasted her friend on hot coals if she had the paranormal ability to accomplish it. "Well, she's too modest. She really has the best power of all of us, she just doesn't want to show off."

Alexander looked interested. "Really?"

"Yes, the power of imagination," Nyx stabbed, through a burst of uncontrollably giggles. The laughs quickly transformed into a shriek when Violet attacked her with a vicious entourage of spiral bound pages. (Violet had a notebook in her hand to jot notes from their planning.) "Alright, she can also blow stuff up, so unless you want to turn into Puree de Alex, you'll accept that she is completely useless."

"Appreciated," Violet remarked dryly, with a bitter smile to Alexander. "Look, I can rig the stage to get you to hover a few feet higher than usual. After Nyx turns out the lights, just sweep on someone…Amanda," she corrected herself quickly. "And pretend to suck her blood."

Alexander looked doubtful. "How are you going to do that in three and a half minutes?"

Violet waved him away, already forming a catapult from a sword and barrel from the prop closet. "Let's just hope Nyx doesn't break it."

Three and a half minutes later, as Violet made a final nervous adjustment to what she hoped was a simple yet utterly genius plan to make it seem like she had powers, Raven beckoned them to the stage. "Time's up. Amaze us all."

The remaining two of the group shuffled onto the platform, casting nervous glances at Violet. She smiled, hoping it looked reassuring, but felt it like more of a grimace. She motioned Alexander to stand on one side of the catapult. "Start hovering the moment your feet leave the ground," she whispered in his ear. She looked at Nyx, who gave a nod that she was ready. Violet nodded back. Alex looked liable to faint.

"We're waiting," Amanda interjected rudely. "That is, unless you don't have anything to show us, in which case, get off the stage."

Nyx blinked, and in unison to the blink the lights of the room extinguished themselves. At the same moment, Violet leaped with all her force on the elevated half of her catapult. This sent Alexander in an uncoordinated bound through the air. He remembered just in time to use his tricks to make him hover, and just as Violet suspected, the original force of the pendulum combined with his own power gave him the ability to fly forward. He didn't have very much aim.

"A rocket?"

"A catapult?"

"A… look out!"

"AAAH!" Breaking the timeless and binding rules of charades, Alexander opened his mouth to speak a warning, but all that came out was a scream of undiluted panic. He slammed into Amanda with enough force to knock her over. Her chair slammed into Triton's knees, who changed into water just in time to avoid permanent handicap. Unfortunately, this left the chair her had been sitting in at such an angle that it shot backwards, into Artemis. Artemis, a bit of a flighty girl, shape changed into random animals.

A horse. An octopus. A…

"Eek!" Claire screamed. "A vampire bat!"

The entire class bounded into a panic. "Where's the vampire…"

Nyx's devilish voice suddenly pierced through the panicked din of the room. "They've got it! They said vampire! That was our subject!"

Raven raised her eyebrows as Alexander pulled himself off a screaming Amanda (apparently, Amanda didn't think much of him). "Did you plan for this to happen?"

"N- Ouch!" Alexander exclaimed, as both Adina and Nyx elbowed him in the ribs, pushing him behind them on the platform.

"Of course we did," Nyx boasted. "Violet had a premonition of it."

"A premonition, huh? Well, since you technically followed the rules I'll give you an A." She scribbled the letter down in her grade book and helped clean up the catastrophe of the day. "Just remember my husband is Oracle," she whispered in Violet's ear as she shuffled nervously to her seat. Violet flinched, sinking into her chair, trying to make herself seem as small and invisible as possible.

Alexander leaned over his own desk toward Violet. "Was that supposed to happen?"

Violet shrugged. "We didn't mean to cause a class-wide panic, if that's what you mean." She glanced over to Nyx, who had reclaimed her human form. She was smiling broadly, completely at home with the utter-chaos of the braver of the class trying to catch Artemis to convince her to change back, and the more cowardly cowering under their desks.

"But we got an A, right?"

Nyx smirked, leaning back on the back legs of her chair. "Hell yes, we got an A. What did you expect?"

Her chair broke


	3. Chapter 3 A Deal

**i was gonna update yesterday, but moron that i was, i uplaoded a chapter that i already posted. doi! um... merry christmas, happy holidays to all!**

**o yea, and my book Desert Rose is coming out (if nothing else goes wrong) (please, please let nothing else go wrong) march 10th. by Kat Momenzadeh. please buy it, cus it will make me very happy! think of it as your christmas present to me**

Chapter 3- A Deal

When the bell rang, the class moved rather reluctantly to the next period. It was the last class of the day, and Violet and Nyx were looking forward to a night of insurmountable homework and no sleeping. Haven might be a school specifically designed for Mythics, but that didn't mean they weren't allowed to pile on the homework. And pile they did.

Unfortunately, Alexander was steadfastly persisting in his game of tagalong. Throughout English, he had an annoying habit of passing notes to the two outcasts, asking them what they were doing later and if he could come along. After being caught with the incriminating written proof of not thinking about English, being assigned detention for later that evening, and realizing with the amount of homework they had, a two hour detention wasn't going to fit very well, Violet and Nyx were even less thrilled about this new student then before.

So, three hours later, as they trekked to their detention (Tara had detention for the day, much to Violet's dismay), they were painfully vocal in their distaste of Alexander.

"I don't get it!" Nyx shouted. "Out of the hundreds of students in this school, why do you need to follow us around? It's your fault we're going to detention in the first place you annoying skinny little creature of-"

"Alright, alright, I got it," Alexander interrupted. His self-esteem could only take so much abuse. "I just like you guys. You seem less fake then Brizo and company." He sneaked a look to the side to see how this statement would go over with the two, and knew he had made a wonderful call. It was obvious that the two weren't overly fond of the charmer; he hoped to take advantage of that.

Violet caught the look and smirked. "Nice try, Sparky. We're not that easily swayed." She jumped up and down a little to recapture warmth in her feet. Stupidly, they decided to take the shortcut from the dorms to the classes through the courtyard. As cold as it was in the daytime, it was even colder at night.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Alexander asked.

"Get us out of detention," Nyx replied immediately. "I have way too much work to be wasting time writing lines, and I don't want to be playing catch-up this weekend."

Alexander caught the subtly avoided hint. "What are you doing this weekend?"

Nyx grinned savagely, exposing glittery white teeth in the dark. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would," Violet interjected quickly. That they were doing anything this weekend was news to her. She was under the impression they were doing the usual- finishing off homework, playing some poker, then going outside to watch Splat. Actually, it was so cold, she might actually be pushed into actually joining the inter-mural Splat team and playing to circulate her blood.

That scary smile hadn't left Nyx's face yet. "Alexander, if you get us out of detention, I assure you I will personally include you in any plans of the weekend."

Violet scoffed. "What if I don't want him here? I mean, he is threatening my prolonged existence here as he has just signed me up for a detention with Tara."

"What's wrong with Tara," Alexader asked.

"Mind-reader. Incredibly annoying," Nyx replied quickly, not letting Alexander make any assumptions on Violet. "And Violet, if he gets you out of detention, you owe him a favor anyway."

"Not if it was he who gave us the detention in the first place," Violet quipped.

Alexander shivered. "Can we argue and walk at the same time?" The girls had come to a halt in their argument, and he would never be used to the cold enough to simply stand in it idly.

Nyx, who wasn't even wearing a coat (one of her tricks was that cold didn't affect her as strongly), shrugged and continued walking. "You heard the deal, Alexander. Get us out of detention with Tara and you're ours for the weekend."

This time, when Alexander shivered, it had nothing to do with cold. Nyx was a little creepy. "It's a deal. Wait here," he bolted the rest of the way to the classes, leaving Violet and Nyx on the cobblestone path.

"What, do you just want us to freeze to death!" Violet yelled after him.

Not five minutes later, when Nyx had actually used her chaos for something practical, lighting a bush on fire to keep them warm, Alexander returned, smiling broadly.

"Our detention with Tara is cancelled."

Nyx's eyes almost popped out of her head. "Wh-what?" She wasn't actually expecting him to be able to accomplish her given task. In fact, the point of the task was not to be able to complete it. That way he would be out of their hair.

"No detention with Tara," he repeated, a pleased grin plastered on his reddening face. The wind had started to pick up.

"H-how did you do that?"

Alexander shrugged. "She has jury duty. In California. For the next three weeks."

Violet squeaked in contained joy. "You mean Tara isn't going to be here for three _weeks_. Oh beautiful day!"

"Weeks," Nyx corrected her, beaming. "We're free, we're free, we're free!" She began skipping in circles, latching onto Violet's wrists and spinning her along with her.

Violet pried her hand from Nyx's and threw herself at Alexander, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh my God, Alexander! You are amazing!" She kissed him on the cheek in her happiness, and continued to leap and bound through the freezing night, screaming into the frosty still air. Nyx careened along with her.

"Um…" Alexander jogged to catch up with the girls, who were already several feet in front of him. "We still have detention."

Sometimes, a moment of disappointment could be described as a deflating balloon. This moment could not. This moment was a balloon that had just been popped mercilessly with a razor sharp pin. Where there was once a pure, bubbly happiness, suddenly there was none. "What do you mean, we still have detention?" Nyx asked, hitting him with a look that caused any parts of him that weren't already frozen to shrivel up with dread.

"You said get us out of detention with Tara. Well, I did. We don't have detention with Tara."

Alexander was getting quite scared. The two girls were advancing on him with black murder in their eyes. "And who do we have detention with now," Violet asked, in a surprisingly innocent but all the more frightening voice.

He backed up warily, ready to make a mad dash for the nearest door. He had long legs, so he was a pretty fast runner. "Uh… a teacher named John." He bolted.

They chased him.

And he didn't even stand a chance. When one of his attackers was about as tall as he was, and the other had the gift of chaos, he stumbled quite soon, and was immediately tackled by Violet. "Ah! No, no don't hurt me! I swear I can get rid of the detention! Ahhh…?" His scream raised into a question at the end, as he realized through his closed eyes that he wasn't in any pain. (Nosophori had a very limited endurance for pain.) Gingerly, he opened his eyes.

Both girls were _hugging_ him. He had to admit, it wasn't that bad. If this was what Mythics thought of as torture… _well, chain me to the wall_, he thought bemusedly. "Um… okay. Not unwanted, but not altogether expected," he muttered nervously, as the girls prevented him from moving with their hugging.

"Oh you stupid newbie!" Nyx said, near tears in her happiness.

"A detention with John is like…" Violet couldn't seem to find an adequate adjective to describe it.

They stood up, helping Alexander to his feet. "You're staying with us from now on," Nyx said. "You bring us good luck."

"I agree," Violet said, beginning to trot towards the detention room as she could officially not feel her fingers or toes. "I wonder when John got back anyway."

"Got back from where?"

Nyx explained for his benefit, as Violet had broken under the cold and was running full out to the warm building. "John is the dean of admissions. He travels around the country finding Mythics who need to come to this school. He's usually only here a couple weeks at a time. Drives Raven crazy."

Alex looked confused. "Raven, the theatre teacher?"

"Yeah, she's his wife. When she misses him too much, she can just fly over to see him, but it's always nice when he comes home. Everyone's in a better mood."

Alexander nodded, impressed. "That's a lot of frequent flier miles."

Nyx snorted, looking at him as if he were crazy. "I mean fly literally. She's a Siren." She gave him a look, and then giggled again as she noticed his hands folded underneath his arms for more warmth. "Cold?"

"Aren't you?"

"Not really."

"Well, I am." He ran as Violet had, following her frosty footsteps in the moonlight.


	4. Chapter 4 Hyperventilating

**i only got one review on the last chapter. i got really worried, so i checked the stats. a lot of people read it, but out of all of you who read it, only phantom666 reviewed. thankyou phantom666 for reviewing. it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. its cus of her i'm updating now at all... plus its the day after christmas and i'm BORED! **

**if everyone reviews, it might just make me write this story faster. that means faster updates. wink, wink i rly need the critiques anyway, bc this is such a different plot then i'm used to. (has anyone else noticed the obscene amount of characters i have?) **

**anyway, read and enjoy. merry day after christmas!**

Chapter 4- Hyperventilating

The only way to describe a detention with John was fun. As an Oracle, he had the power of illusions. All those stupid questions that poke the brain on a boring day, he was able to answer with the ability to recreate the situation. In fact, he was one of the few who knew which came first, the chicken or the egg.

The three students walked into the detention room, to find John sitting at a desk, his legs propped haphazardly on the desk, gazing absently at an illusion of a caveman running from a tyrannosaurus rex. He waved it away when the door opened, dropping his feet to the floor and standing. "Not even a full hour back and the dynamic duo are already at my door." Alexander followed Violet and Nyx, earning him a look of surprise from John. "And I see there is a new member of the outcasts. I don't recognize you. You're new." This was not a question, but a statement. John personally knew the names of every single student at Haven.

"Yes, I just started today. I'm Alexander." He reached out to shake his hand, but Nyx grabbed onto his wrist, pushing down the outstretched appendage. He gave her a confused look.

"John isn't a touchy feely kind of person," she explained.

"Actually," John interrupted, a bemused expression on his face. "I don't mind in the least. It's just a little awkward for the person I'm touching."

Alexander nodded slowly, trying hard to pretend he understood. "Right, right. I can see that."

"He's an Oracle. He can look into your soul through touch," Nyx said, the reverence plain on her voice.

John snickered. "Nothing so dramatic. I can just hear emotions and feelings. When I touch someone it gets louder. But enough of me. What, pray tell, have you gotten detention for, and Alexander on your first day!"

"Someone," Violet said, looking blatantly at Alexander so everyone would know who someone was. "Decided it would be fun to pass notes during Mr. Nantimone's class." Mr. Nantimone was one of the non-Mythic teachers, and one of the few who enforced the teacher-student relationship. No one was caught saying his first name in the school. It just wasn't done. Violet happened to like his class when he didn't assign her detention.

Alexander flushed red on his pale cheeks. John clapped his shoulder fondly. "You'll learn quickly. Don't worry. As for your crime, it seems the only punishment possible is writing lines." He laughed at the girls' outraged faces, for he had never made them work through their detentions. He nodded over to the empty desks, and an illusion of Violet, Nyx and Alexander appeared in consecutive seats, busily copying what looked to be the dictionary.

"Oh, that's a relief," Nyx said. "I thought you were actually going to make us work. That would have been awful."

John sighed, sitting on top of the desk. "No, Nicole, I will continue in my complete lack of discipline with my students and not force you to work."

"It's Nyx," she replied, automatically.

"No," John said slowly, giving her a very serious look. "It's Nicole."

Violet sensed the 'a Mythic is not who you are, but what you are', speech coming along, so she distracted the group immediately. "We taught Alexander to fly today."

John looked interested. "Really? Is that your power?"

"No, he can only hover," Violet answered for him. "But you see, I made this pendulum, and the combined force of him propelling forward in whatever makes him hover with the force of my weight on the pendulum actually made him fly. Sort of."

He raised his eyebrows at Alexander. "Will you bemaking this pendulum trick a permanent addition to your list of conveniences?"

Alexander scoffed. "Hell, no. I'm still emotionally scared after what Amanda said to me when I flew into her."

"Well, why did you fly into her?"

"No one said I actually had to aim," he protested.

They talked amiably for the next half hour, the girls filling John in on the recent gossip of the school, and John telling them stories about life outside it. There were three new candidates for the school he was looking for, and he hoped to have them all enrolled by next month. It meant that he would only be staying for at Haven for a couple of days. All three students were disappointed.

"If you stay another week and a half, you'll be here for the Splat championships," Nyx said. "Think of it. Cold winter day, courtyard full of student and faculty alike, and the biggest Splat game of the year unfolding right before your eyes."

"No matter how tempting that sounds…" John paused a moment, trying to think of an excuse good enough to miss such a pivotal school event. "You know what, I'll stay. I'll leave the day after Splat. How does that sound?"

"Yes," Violet and Nyx cheered at the same time. Alexander couldn't help but feel slightly less than excited.

"What exactly is Splat, anyway?"

Violet took up the explanation. "Splat is only the best game in the world. You play on teams, five against five, and you have to get the egg from the other team without letting them get yours."

"Yeah," he said, unimpressed.

"Yeah, and we're allowed to use our powers any way we want in that game, so long as we don't kill anyone. There will be people flying, catching fire, turning into water…. Last game someone caused an earthquake."

"So why is it called Splat?"

"Because if your egg goes splat, it's an automatic lose. If you make the other team's egg go splat, it's an automatic lose. And whoever loses gets punished by the other team."

"What kind of punishments?"

"All kinds," Nyx said. "Last time I lost, I had to jump off the side of the school and hope that one of the flyers would catch me. Needless to say, he ended up breaking an arm… er, wing."

"That's nothing," Violet said, warming up to the conversation. "Last time I lost, I had to," she glanced at John, and suddenly thought differently of the sharing moment. "Dance the Macarena," she finished, innocently. Nyx snorted. She remembered the last time Violet lost. The Macarena was only the smallest of details.

"Legally speaking, I can't hear anything you're saying right now," John said, rolling his eyes. He glanced at his watch, and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "And maturely speaking, I should be telling you to get out of here and start doing your homework. You'll be working well into the morning at this rate."

All three groaned as they put back on their coats and scarves, but John was adamant. Just as they were about to exit, though, he caught onto Violet's wrist. "Just a minute, Violet. I want to speak with you." She looked down, surprised at his grip on her bare wrist. Her instinct was to draw away, but she trusted John. Plus, he could only hear emotions, not thoughts. All that he would hear from her would be her displeasure of being touched.

"Alright. Go on without me," she added to Nyx and Alexander. "I'll meet you in the common area." They left, Nyx looking anxiously from Violet to John. She tried to wield her chaos in some way to distract John from speaking with Violet, but only succeeded in causing Alexander to run into the door frame.

With a climbing feeling of dread as Alexander's curses of pain came further and further away, Violet sat nervously on the edge of a desk. "What's the matter?"

John sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "I don't know if you appreciate it or not, but you have a very good life here. By the time I was your age, my parents had died, I had worked for a monster, and my best friend was killed. You are very lucky to have this school to protect you from the world."

Violet looked at the floor, finding it excruciatingly difficult to meet John's eyes. There was an odd choking sensation blocking her throat, and she bit the inside of her cheek to drown it out. She didn't like pain, but she welcomed the distraction. "I'm aware of that, yes."

"Then you are also aware that not all Mythics are good. I know there are people in this school you don't particularly like, Amanda being a prime target, I believe, but you have never known a Mythic to be as terrible as to hurt, kill, or Control you."

He was getting rid of her. She knew it would happen eventually. Her ruse of being a Mythic could only last so long. No matter how many tricks she pulled off, no matter how many times Nyx saved her with a random spurt of chaos, no matter how unusual her appearance was, it wasn't good enough. The normal became unusual in this school of the extraordinary. "What are you saying," she asked, softly, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over her eyes.

John clasped his hands in front of him, trying to find the right words to explain this to the girl. "You came to us under rather unusual circumstances," he started, slowly.

She sniffed, miserably. "Yeah, I appeared out of thin air."

"Precisely," John continued. "From nowhere you came to us, thirteen years old with no memory of who you were before that time. All you knew was your name, and only your first one at that."

Violet couldn't take it any more. The violent emotions that she tried to contain within herself suddenly burst free. She knew it must be terrible for John, who would hear the feelings like a scream in the ear, but she just couldn't contain herself anymore. Tears flooded her eyes, and she sobbed miserably. "I'm sorry! I know I don't have any useful powers like Artemis or Triton, and I don't have a second shape. I don't even know if I have powers. I'm not even a Mythic! But please don't throw me out! I have no where else to go!"

John was silent for a moment, watching her blankly as she sobbed through her confession. Then, to Violet's surprise, he laughed. "Is that what you think I'm talking to you for?"

She hiccupped, her eyes red and cheeks blotchy. "Yes," she squeaked, and sobbed again.

John chuckled, gripping her shoulders through the long sleeves of her thrift-store sweater. "Listen, Violet, no one here is trying to throw you out. You belong here as much as any of the other Mythics."

"B-but I don't h-hic-ave powers, or a second f-form, or any –hic-fun tricks. I can't even s-see in the dark," she said, the words almost incomprehensible as she had begun hyperventilating through her sobs. She remembered bitterly what Nyx had told her at the beginning of the day. "Th-three quarters of Haven can do that."

"Three quarters of Haven also didn't magically appear without memory on our doorstep," he pointed out. "In fact," he added as an afterthought. "None of them have. Sometimes it just takes some people longer to develop their powers, even after their thirteenth birthday. Eris Solomon, for example, wasn't aware that she was different until well after she turned seventeen. An abusive past kept her from accepting them earlier. As it seems a bit frustrating to not have any memory from before your thirteenth birthday, I would guess that your powers have just temporarily shut off."

Sniff. Hiccup. "Temporarily? Are you sure?"

"I haven't made a mistake yet."

She began to feel a little more consoled, and her squeaky gasps of breath were becoming less frequent. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Th-then what –hic- are you s-saying?"

"I had a vision about you," he said, and she looked at him, surprised. "Don't look so amazed, it happens every now and again. You were in a place I don't recognize, where the world is still."

"What?"

He shrugged. "I was hoping you'd understand it. Everything was dim, as if the light was being absorbed by something. And you were there, alone. You looked, lost, somehow. Confused."

_Kind of like I look now,_ Violet thought, a potent mixture of confusion, desperation and downright misery making her want nothing more than to curl up in a ball in her bed and not come out until the weekend. "Confused, how?"

"You didn't know where you were, or how you got there. Your clothes were torn, as well. And you had a black eye."

Violet winced. She had never had a black eye in her time here at Haven, and would hope to keep it that way. "I still don't understand," she muttered, wiping her runny nose on her sleeve. Disgusting.

"I think," he said, slowly, stepping away to rummage through the teacher's desk for a box of tissues. "That this vision is somehow linked to who you are, and what your power might be. And if what I think is right, you would be a very valuable tool in many enemies' minds." He handed her a tissue, and she gratefully blew her nose.

Three tissues later, she finally worked up the courage to start asking questions. "When you say enemies, do you mean Raphael?"

He smiled at her, the way an uncle would smile at his charming niece. "Raphael is the least of my concerns as long as Eris is around to keep him in check, but, yes, I believe he would be included in that consensus."

Violet tugged at a fourth tissue, tearing it away from the corners in. "And my power? What do you think it is?"

"Violet, if I'm not mistaken, I think you can stop time."

Information overdrive. Too much data. Cannot compute. Abort! Abort! Violet knuckled her eyes with her fingers hard, trying to take in what John just said. She couldn't. "Um… John, I have a lot of homework I need to finish, and I'm sure Nyx is going to need my help with physics and pre-calc, so I'm just going to go. Now." She picked up her coat, abandoned and forgotten in a pile by the door, slipped into it and started walking.

"Oh, Violet, one more thing."

She was going to cry again. She was sure of it. How could he add one more thing on top of everything he had already thrown at her? "Yes?"

"Ask Alexander what he knows. He's hiding something."

"Did you have a vision about him, too?"

John shook his head. "No, but secrets are very loud."

**hehehe! cliffhanger! i dont usually add notes on the end, because i doubt anyone reads them (or the ones at the top for that matter), but i'm in such a good mood today, basking in the glow of my christmas presents. **

**so... easiest way to fix this terrible cliffhanger... review, review, review!**

**PLEEEEEAAAASE**


	5. Chapter 5 Violence and Visitors

**um... when i downloaded this chapter, for some reason it came up in like 10 point faunt. im not sure why, but i cant seem to fix it. sorry!**

**also, sorry i havent updated since christmas. i've been rewriting the sequel to desert rose, plus there are stupid midterms. gargh! i havent had much time to update. **

**um... i don't think anyone reveiwed the last chapter, but if you did and i didn't reply to you... again with the stupid midterms. just yell at me in your next review and i'll reply. **

**anyway, read and enjoy!**

Chapter 5- Violence and Visitors

"So," Alexander said, making himself comfortable in the common area. He had a pile of textbooks waiting to be opened in front of him, and his long, gangly legs were arranged haphazardly upon the coffee table. He was looking absently at the school crest, emblazoned on the far wall. "Isabel is the serpent."

"Yes, she represents smarts and cleverness," Nyx said, absently, her multi-colored hair falling over her hunched shoulders as she scribbled notes from a biology book.

"Raven is the bird of prey," Alexander continued, oblivious of Nyx's concentration.

"She's the passion and life," Nyx muttered, flipping the page with enough excess force that the corner tore off. She grumbled, and retrieved a roll of tape from the supply closet to repair it.

"John is the all-seeing eye."

"Insight into yourself and others."

He paused, staring at the crest for a moment. He plopped his feet down on the floor with a clunk and leaned forward in concentration. "Then who's the bull?"

"The bull represents strength of body and spirit. His name was David Connor."

Alexander was confused. "Was? What happened to him?"

Nyx shrugged. "There are lots of rumors that run around the school about what happened to him, but what I can basically surmise is that Isabel loved him, he was killed a little while before Haven was opened, and the school was named after him." Alexander gave her a confused look. "Haven's real name is the D. Connor Institute of Excellence. We call it Haven because that's what it is for people like us. Somewhere safe." She paused for a moment, frowning over the chapter she was supposed to be taking notes on for tomorrow. "You know, even though you didn't have all of your classes today, the teachers will still expect you to have all of your homework done. And just in English there's three chapters of The Iliad to read and chunk for the day after next."

He scoffed, dismissively. "Homework, shmomework. It's just a waste of your time when you think about it."

Nyx raised her eyebrows, doubtfully. None of the students here shared his lethargy toward homework. Just because they had a guaranteed in for being Mythics didn't mean they had a guaranteed promise of remaining if their grades were too low. It was, in many ways, like a real boarding school, where if you slacked off, you were thrown out. "Whatever you say," she muttered, burying herself deeper within the detailed cell anatomy charts.

Alexander shrugged. He wasn't here for grades or knowledge. He had a mission to accomplish and a life to create. There was the added interest of Violet, and what she was doing living among Mythics, but that was more curiosity than actual necessity.

The door to the outside hallway suddenly jolted open and slammed closed. Violet walked in, her cheeks bright red from the cold, but her coat wide open. Alexander knew she hadn't buttoned it when she was outside from the shivers that racked her body, even in the warm common area. Stupid girl. He might be a little ignorant in just how cold it could get here, but she had been living her for a while now. She should know by now to dress warmly. Nosophori didn't respond well to cold.

"Oh, Violet!" Nyx cried, alarmed. She jumped over her piles of books and notebooks and wrapped her arms around her friend. "What's the matter with you? Why didn't you zipper your coat?"

"F-forgot," she stuttered through blue lips. She glanced at Alexander for a moment, scowled, then looked away, paying attention to her shorter friend.

"I think I saw Apollo come by a couple minutes ago. I'll go get him." Nyx was suspicious. She sometimes forgot to wear a coat, but that was because the cold didn't affect her. She only wore one because she knew she should. But Violet! Violet did not forget a coat. Her homework maybe, her mind possibly, but never something that would retain the little body-heat she managed to emulate.

After Jacob, also called Apollo, had warmed Violet up under threat of eternal chaos from Nyx, Violet finally sat down miserably, looking at the endless pile of homework in front of her.

"What happened," Nyx asked, as she watched Violet pull her physics book in front of her.

Violet shuddered, still trying to shake off the feeling of that terrible cold invading her entire body. At the time, though, she thought the cold was better. Anything was better than facing the complications of what John said. "Nothing," she muttered, reading the first problem of her homework. _A football is kicked during a field goal attempt so as to travel twenty meters per second at an angle of fifty degrees with the horizontal…_

"Don't tell me nothing," Nyx said, hotly, glaring through her dark lashes. "I know you better than that."

"When it says to find the total hang-time, does that mean they want delta-t or delta-y," Violet asked, uselessly. She, of course, already knew the answer.

"Violet!" she snapped, and the supply cabinet burst open, the contents of its shelves falling to the ground. "See what you made me do!"

"It's one point six seconds," Violet replied with a borderline savage grin. It would take Nyx a lot longer than ten seconds to figure out this problem, and she'd be damned if she helped her out. Not after the way she was pushing her now.

"What's wrong with you? What did John say to you? Are you kicked out of the school?"

Violet turned on her violently, eyes flaring with anger. "Well, that's what you think, isn't it? I don't deserve to be in this school. I'm not special enough."

"I never said-"

"Don't lie!" Violet screamed, tears of rage beginning to fall down her cheeks. When she blinked, drops of salty wetness fell on her glasses, marring her vision. It was all too much for one night. John had had visions of his students before and hadn't told them about it. Why did he choose now to break his own rule? She supposed she should feel happy that she had the promise of a power coming into her future, but her power would prove to be a very dangerous one. Worse than Hades's, and he had the terrible habit of stealing souls. He gave them back eventually…

John had said Raphael would want her if he found out. She was scared of Raphael. She had seen him only once before, her second year, when he tried to come into the school. Medusa bit him. Medusa had been scared for her students. That was no less than terrifying.

Nyx bristled at Violet's sudden outbreak and even more sudden silence. "Who are you to tell me not to lie? Who are you to tell anyone not to lie!"

Violet narrowed her eyes, removing her glasses impatiently to wipe the tears from them. "That's not the point! You belong here, but you don't think I do!"

Alexander chose that moment to hopefully halt the war. He twisted between the feuding girls, facing Violet. "Come on, of you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. Let's just all calm down and…"

"You! You have no right to tell me to calm down!" Violet bellowed, red in the face. She remembered what John said about Alexander, and felt the sudden urge for violence. She wasn't a particularly violent person, since it usually had repercussions of pain on herself, but there was a first time for everything. She swung her fist.

Nyx blinked, dousing the room in darkness. The sudden change in light caused Violet to stumble, falling into Alexander rather than punching him in the face. There was a scuffle in the darkness, where someone's knee hit her back, and she swung her hand across something soft and warm. The light turned back on, revealing Violet and Alexander in a tangled mess on the floor, and Nyx nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd she go," Alexander muttered, his voice somewhat muffled as Violet's elbow was in his mouth.

Violet rolled off of him with a look of disgust. Nyx had taken the coward's way out, changed form to a barely perceptible shadow and high-tailed it to a safer area of the school. If she fancied a guess, she was probably gliding through the courtyard right now, and there was no way Violet was going back out in the cold to look for her.

"I'm going to bed," Violet said, shortly.

Alexander glanced at the wall clock. "It's only eight o'clock."

"Good night!" she replied, sharply, heading for the girls' dorm. Alexander was more than willing to let her go.

A strange, human-esque shadow flitted through the cold night. Where it passed, all light was quenched. Not even the steady glow of moonlight was able to breech the radius of its darkness.

As the shadow reached the door to John's office, it paused a moment, tentatively pressing its hand against the locked door. It passed through the solid surface. The shadow walked through the closed door.

On the other side, Nyx formed from the shadow. She grinned happily at the door, happy to find she had at least one practical skill. "John?" she called softly, in the darkness. She searched the wall for a light switch, and flicked them on, not so much for her benefit, than to make her presence known. "Hello?"

There was a rustle of fabric from the comfy leather couch, and a violently blue-topped head peaked from under a dark jacket. "It's not nice to wake people when they're sleeping," the blue-haired person muttered, crankily.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone would be… hey, wait a second. Who the hell are you?"

The woman rubbed her eyes with long fingers, sitting up the rest of the way. "Eris Solomon," she muttered. "I was waiting for John."

Nyx thought a moment. Eris Solomon. Eris Solomon. That was an important name that she knew she should remember. It was just about as important as David Connor or Raphael Alverez. _Ding!_ The bell went off in her head. "You're that chick who works for Raphael," she accused.

She chuckled, running her fingers through her close-cropped hair. "That's me."

Nyx glared, suspiciously. "What are you doing here, then? Isabel hates Raphael."

Eris nodded, sagely. "Too true, she does. Won't let Rafe within a five-mile radius of the campus. It means I have to play messenger." She didn't seem to be too upset about it.

"Why do you need to see John?"

She met Nyx's dark, mistrusting gaze with her sparkling sapphire eyes. "Am I to assume this is somehow your business?"

"Yes," Nyx replied without even blinking.

Eris, looking far from surprised, but rather fully impressed, nodded. "Not all Mythics are right for Haven. John can tell when he touches a prospective student if they can reform to the changed atmosphere."

Nyx frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, take me for example. If someone came to me when I was thirteen and told me I had supernatural powers because of a recessive gene that all of a sudden decided to appear, I would think that person was crazy. I definitely wouldn't go with that person to a school of more crazy people.

"John is able to see the ones who won't be able to accept what they are. It's Raphael and my job to keep an eye on them."

"And keep them if they prove to have useful powers," Nyx guessed.

Eris shrugged again. "That's Rafe's thing, not mine. But I make sure that he doesn't go too far, like he did with Isabel."

Nyx was curious despite herself. "What happened to Isabel?" The thought of anyone able to make Isabel scared was a terrifying thought. She always seemed fearless and in control.

"That," Eris answered with a grin. "Is between you and Isabel." She looked at the younger girl for a moment. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Nyx."

"Nyx," she said, taking in her appearance. The school uniform that had been made unique, the hair dyed with clashing shades of color against the original black. "I'm to guess that you are something to do with night."

Nyx shrugged. "Embodiment of night," she recited easily. "Not really amazing. My second shape is a shadow which tends to scare people, and I can extinguish lights and create chaos."

Eris's eyes brightened. "Really?"

She grinned, brightly. "Don't get too excited. I can't control chaos. It just always happens around me." She snickered, suddenly. "People say I should come with a caution sign."

The door opened and John walked in from the cold, his armed wrapped around the slender red-headed Raven. He didn't look at all surprised to see his office occupied. "I see we have company."

"John, I really need to talk to you," Nyx said, urgently.

"It appears as much, or you wouldn't have broken into my office to see me," John said with a smirk.

"Oh," Nyx muttered, with a blush. "I didn't break in, exactly."

"I know," John said. "Let's go for a walk outside. I assume the cold still doesn't bother you."

"That's right."

They left Raven and Eris behind to catch up, as it appeared they were close friends, and strolled aimlessly on the winding paths pf the courtyard. "So, what's the problem?" John asked.

"It's Violet," Nyx blurted, unable to contain her worry. "I don't know what you told her, but she's gone crazy. She tried to punch Alexander in the common area today. If I hadn't turned off the lights…" She paused, shaking her head at her friend's completely out-of-character actions. "What did you tell her?"

John frowned. "She didn't tell you?"

"No," she said, hiding the hurt that she felt from it. "When I asked her if you were… you know… kicking her out of Haven." (She muttered that last part very quickly, fearing John's reaction.) "She accused me of thinking that she should go, that I didn't think she belonged here. Did you… I mean, is she still allowed to stay?"

"Of course."

"And you didn't… you know… threaten her continued presence here?"

"No."

"And she's staying in the same class?"

"Yes."

Nyx ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "Then what is her problem!"

John did his very best to hide a smile from Nyx's night vision. "Why don't you ask her that question?"

She looked affronted. "I did! And she almost took my head off! Literally!"

John took his student's bare hands in his gloved ones, meeting her eyes as best as he could, as they watered with suppressed laughter. "Then ask her again."

She walked away in annoyance, but he could swear he head her say "So long as Alexander is in the way again."


	6. Chapter 6 The Flu

**i guess ive kind of given up on reviews for this bad boy. ive made a mental note that series arent well appreciated on fanfic tho. no worries, after i finish this and then rewriting the sequel to desert rose, im going to start completley new. im thinking i want to do soemthing with vampires, again, but im not really sure. **

**im officially deleting desert rose from my profile. ive revised it so many times after i posted it thats its NOTHING like it anymore. anyway, i hope u buy the book, bc a lot of work has gone into it. march 3... wink wink. **

**im not going to update this story for a while. i have to rewrite desert rose's sequel, and its taking longer than i thought, and i can only work on one project at a time. **

**er... i dont think anyone reviewed the last chapter, so i have nothing left to say**

Chapter 6- The Flu

Alexander stared at the ceiling of his new dorm, lying on his back on the bed. He was the only one there, the rest of the students he shared this room with possessing lives that didn't include turning in at eight thirty.

The problem was there wasn't much to do. He wasn't at Haven for the grades, so could care less about the sadistic amount of homework he had compiled over a half a day of class. It was too cold to play any sports outside, and even if it wasn't, all the other students took their stay at Haven quite seriously. Frivolously playing on a school night was simply out of the option. He thought he might stay and haunt the common area for a couple hours longer, but even that lost interest after a while. He just couldn't stand to be with so many Mythics for so long.

Idly, he wondered how Violet could withstand it. She and the dark Mythic were obviously very close, and yet it didn't seem to have any effect on either of them. Sure, they argued a lot, but then he and his best friend tended to as well.

He grumbled and stuffed his head under his pillow in frustration. It didn't make sense! Nosphori and Mythics were sworn enemies of nature. How was it that Violet and Nyx were capable of coexisting together? Sure, he had managed passable conversations with the Mythic, but his very skin shuddered at her every word. If it wasn't for his fascination with the two girls' existence, he would happily ostracize himself from them.

There was just one other problem. He was hungry. No amount of cafeteria food would be able to satisfy his starvation, and he did try. After two pies of pizza and three sundaes, he considered it a losing battle. Only his first day here and he was already exhausted. And hungry. He wondered what Violet ate during her long stay here. There weren't many humans on campus, and munching Mythics was just gross. He wondered about that for a moment, that maybe, just maybe, Violet was feeding off… but, no. She might have a strange desire to live with animals, but Violet couldn't be barbaric enough to feed off Nyx. Could she?

Alexander thought back to his classes of the day, and the strange array of mythical creatures he had shared them with. There was a girl, Amanda, whose second shape was mostly human. As a charmer, her only changes were the imperceptible kind. He _was_ starving. How bad could it be?

* * *

Violet opened her eyes blearily as blinding sunlight flooded her unconsciousness. There was a groan from the other girls in the dorm, but Violet was still too lethargic to manage even that. She pulled the blanket over her head, safe from the light.

"What time is it," she heard the girl in the bed beside her mutter.

"Too early," groaned another girl.

Violet tried to remember why she felt so miserable, why her eyes were scratchy and red from crying, or what day it was. It didn't seem important enough, so she sighed sleepily, falling deeper into unconsciousness.

_WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!_

There were screams of surprise all around the girls' dorm, followed by a thump when someone fell out of bed.

_WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!_

"I thought we rigged the alarm not to go off anymore!" Claire moaned from the floor.

"Tara probably fixed it," Julia, Artemis, said. She was lying calmly, unperturbed on her bed. She had morphed her ears to that of a snake. She giggled, and a forked tongue flicked her teeth.

_WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! _

"Does somebody want to turn if _off_," Nyx yelled, her temper flaring. The blankets flew off of each bed to perform a blanket ballet in the air.

"Nyx!" cried the whole dorm in unison.

_WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! _

"GARGH!" Kim, also known as Circe, glared at the small speaker with the large voice, and it sizzled and sparked menacingly. Its obnoxious baritone screams of morning slowly crawled up to a painful falsetto. Kim clenched her hands, narrowing her eyes at the criminal alarm. "Shut up!" she ordered it. It squeaked once more, then obeyed the girl's orders. Contrary to myths, Circe was not a witch. She had a much more practical power of controlling technology.

There was a blessed silence of relief, and the girls crawled out of bed, plucking their blankets from the air, absently.

Nyx was standing on her bed to reach her blanket, as it continued to flutter just beyond her grasp. Violet, taking pity on the shorter girl, reached up and grasped it easily.

"No blood money for being a friend this time," Nyx asked, crankily, snatching the blanket back. She ripped the ponytail out of her hair and did her best to run her fingers through the impossible knots.

Violet looked away. "I'm sorry, okay. I was upset and overwhelmed, not to mention I'm two weeks late for my period."

Nyx rolled her eyes, trying to find something to throw at her. There was nothing. "Would you please warn me next time you're about to have a hormonal breakdown?"

"No problem."

"Alright, then what did John tell you?"

Violet was about to find words to reply, when there came a scream from the other end of the room. As ten girls shared this room, it was hard to discern who the scream came from.

"Amanda? Amanda, what's the matter? Amanda, wake up!"

Nyx shared an unpleasant look with Violet, who shrugged. It looked as they would be finding Diosonyus (the official party guy) for his all-over-after-party-hangover-cure pretty soon. They joined the remaining eight girls to Amanda's bed to see what the matter was. What they saw wasn't a hangover.

"What's the matter with her," Claire asked, worried. Everything about Amanda was wrong. There was a strange gray pallor to her skin, and it was beaded heavily with sweat. Her lips were chapped and dried. When she opened her eyes blearily, and croaked something inaudible.

"She says she has the flu," Julia said, her bat ears wiggling beneath her wildly curly hair.

"Yuck, let's get going then. I don't want to get sick," Nyx said, tugging at Violet's arm.

Violet on the other hand, couldn't shake off the feeling of something wrong. Against her better judgment, she pushed her way through the girls, kneeling by Amanda's bed. "Are you sure she said it was the flu," she asked Julia.

"No," Julia said. "But it had an f and a u in it."

To clarify what she said, Amanda managed to raise her weak hand enough to make a very rude gesture toward the girls crowding her. "Oh, well, that wasn't very nice," Julia muttered, unnecessarily.

Amanda gasped suddenly, curling into a ball as if in pain. Violet put a finger on her neck and found her pulse running at a triple a normal rhythm. Her muscles were tight beneath her fingers. This was familiar. She had seen this before, but she couldn't remember where.

"Someone find Epione. Now!" Violet snapped.

Epione was a healer, another one of the few whose powers were so distinct, she had adopted the name of her Mythic benefactor in place of her birth name. "What's wrong with her?" Kim asked, suspiciously.

"I don't know, but does it look like the flu to you."

Point taken, Kim closed her eyes, lips twitching as she spoke. The speakers suddenly sounded throughout the campus. "Eponite, come to the fourth year girls' dormitories, quickly."

"Subtle," Nyx commented, dryly.

"Better than blowing someone up."

Julia gripped Kim's arm and pulled her away before they could begin a fight.

"Claire, do you know any plants that will ease her pain?" Violet asked.

Claire, Demeter, hit her head at her own stupidity. Their teachers trained them how to use their powers, and what to learn in science and math to enhance those powers, but such deeply drilled information tended to flit away uselessly when the need arose to use it. She ran to the window, throwing it open, and reaching outside. A wild, pronged vine curled around her hands, blossoming vibrant red flowers. She plucked the petals off, detangling her hand carefully and returning to Amanda's bed. "Put a petal in her mouth," she said, handing it to Violet. Funny that the girl without any powers was the only one who knew what to do.

Epione entered, looking confused. "Who rigged the speakers?" This was her last year at Haven, so she was well versed in the methods of the school.

"We need you to heal Amanda," three girls said at once.

That's all anyone needed to say. Moving through the throng of girls, Epione put her hands on Amanda's face. Almost immediately, the color returned to her cheeks and her tight muscles relaxed. "You didn't even need me," Epione muttered. "Whatever herb you gave her was working just fine. I'm just faster."

"What was wrong with her?"'

Epione closed her eyes, looking back at the sickness she had just healed. "I'm not sure." She shuddered a little, for there was a strange emptiness to the sickness, almost like when she helped heal depression, except physical. "It must just be a bug. I'll probably be busy for the next week."

As she left, Amanda woke up.

And clocked Violet.

"Son of a bi-bad word!" Violet yelped, clutching her blackening eye.

* * *

Alexander woke feeling full and happy. He looked at the pile of books for his homework and felt so refreshed he even bothered to use his tricks to make it look like he did it. It took him five whole minutes to complete it properly. If that wasn't hard work, he didn't know what was.

He trotted down the stairs to the common area happily, looking around for Violet and Nyx. He still hadn't fully figured out the layout to Haven, and it seemed applicable to his safety to have the girls there to direct him from the random acts of adventure that were quite common here.

So, it was with confusion that he heard shrieks of anger come from the girls' dorms. Nyx and Violet came running down the stairs hurriedly, still in their pajamas, haphazardly clutching their wrinkled uniforms. Violet's glasses were askew, and there was a cut just below her right eye, bleeding sluggishly on her cheek. Her eye was bright red, and would no doubt start to bruise soon. They looked as if they were running for their lives.

"Where's the fire?" Alexander asked.

"Behind us," Violet gasped. A pigeon suddenly flew from the girls' dorms and fluttered madly in circles over the door to the boys' wing. "Thank you, Artemis. We owe you one!" Without a backward glance to a baffled Alexander, the two ran up the stairs, padding softly with their bare feet. Alexander felt, for his roommates' sake, he better follow them.

"What is going on," he asked, when he was finally upstairs.

Kyle, Brian and some of the other stragglers, who hadn't headed for breakfast, looked highly disgruntled that the two outcasts had interrupted their morning ritual. "Wow, it's a sty in here," Nyx commented, ignoring Alexander's question. "Is this bed yours?"

"Yeah," he replied, absently. "That doesn't tell me what… hey!" Nyx had ripped the blanket off his bed and was taking it to the corner, tacking it to the wall with one of Violet's creations of two pens and a few rubber bands. "What are you doing?"

"We're already late for breakfast," Violet said, disappearing behind the blanket with Nyx. "And missing the beginning of pre-calc is just not done."

They appeared from behind the blanket, dressed in their uniforms minus any shoes. "Can I ask why you're using the boy's wing as a dressing room," Alexander asked.

"Are you that desperate," Kyle asked.

Nyx glared, picking up a forgotten pair of flip-flops from the floor and sliding them on her feet. Not exactly appropriately sized, or appropriately seasoned at that, but it was better than braving the girls' dorm again. "This coming from the guy with an unnatural obsession with a thirty year old woman," Nyx quipped, nastily.

Kyle's pale cheeks flushed red. "I am not obsessed with Eris," he muttered, weakly.

"Good-bye," Nyx said forcefully. Kyle and Brian thought it best to go along with that phrase.

"What happened?" Alexander asked. He threw a pair of hiking boots at Violet, and she slid her feet into them without even untying them.

"Amanda was sick this morning, and I called Epione to heal her, and she thanks me by punching me in the face and accusing me of making her sick," Violet said, tapping her tender eye. She wanted to find Epione to heal it for her, but she knew the older girl would say no. It was dangerous for her to heal someone for small bumps or scratches. It weakened the effect of her powers on a patient for when they really needed it.

"Well, did you make her sick," Nyx asked.

"Of course not!" Violet exclaimed. "Would I help her if I did?"

"She punched you in the eye?" Alexander asked, incredulous.

"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting it, or I would have ducked," Violet snapped. She wanted an icepack and a Tylenol ASAP. She definitely didn't want to go to class today.

Nyx was thinking the same thing. "At least its Friday," she said. "There's a Splat game tonight, and we could team against Amanda. Plus, tomorrow, I have plans for us."

"When are you going to tell us what this plan is," Alexander asked.

She grinned, impishly, and led the way to pre-calc.


	7. Chapter 7 Calc Blues

**Quick summary of the last chapters… because I'm a big fat liar and didn't get back to this until much later than I expected. This is just a general consensus of prior events... I literally copy and pasted the most important lines. There's not going to be much reason or rhyme. Following is the much awaited chapter 7. **

_Violet was, in many ways, normal. There were no skeletons hiding in her closet or radioactive spiders lying dormant in her past. The normal became strange in the school of the extraordinary._

_Nyx gave Violet a meaningful look, giving her an exaggerated bow. "No applause for my third power please. Chaos following my every move is really not all its choked up to be."_

_A slow, lazy smile spread across Isabel's face, making her seem younger and brighter. "I think you will make a fine addition to our school, Alexander. Now just one question. Are you aware of what you are?"_

"_Well, what do you want me to do?" Alexander asked. _

"_Get us out of detention," Nyx replied immediately._

"_You said get us out of detention with Tara. Well, I did. We don't have detention with Tara."_

"_Violet, if I'm not mistaken, I think you can stop time."_

_Information overdrive. Too much data. Cannot compute. Abort! Abort! Violet knuckled her eyes with her fingers hard, trying to take in what John just said. She couldn't. "Um… John, I have a lot of homework I need to finish, and I'm sure Nyx is going to need my help with physics and pre-calc, so I'm just going to go. Now_

_"Oh, Violet, one more thing."_

_"Yes?"_

_"Ask Alexander what he knows. He's hiding something."_

_"Did you have a vision about him, too?"_

_John shook his head. "No, but secrets are very loud."_

"_What's wrong with you? What did John say to you? Are you kicked out of the school?"_

_Violet turned on her violently, eyes flaring with anger. "Well, that's what you think, isn't it? I don't deserve to be in this school. I'm not special enough." She swung her fist. _

_John did his very best to hide a smile from Nyx's night vision. "Why don't you ask her that question?"_

_She looked affronted. "I did! And she almost took my head off! Literally!"_

_"Then ask her again."_

_She walked away in annoyance, but he could swear he head her say "So long as Alexander is in the way again."_

_Alexander thought back to his classes of the day, and the strange array of mythical creatures he had shared them with. There was a girl, Amanda, whose second shape was mostly human. As a charmer, her only changes were the imperceptible kind. He was starving. How bad could it be? _

_Violet on the other hand, couldn't shake off the feeling of something wrong. Against her better judgment, she pushed her way through the girls, kneeling by Amanda's bed. "Are you sure she said it was the flu," she asked Julia. This was familiar. She had seen this before, but she couldn't remember where. _

_Amanda woke up. _

_And clocked Violet. _

_"Son of a bi-bad word!" Violet yelped, clutching her blackening eye._

**Sorry this took me so much longer to get back to. As I said before, I was working on a rewrite for one of my other stories. It took longer than expected. **

**Also, I want the smaller parts of this story to resemble an actual highschool as much as possible. If anyone has some distinct anecdotes from their classes that they want to share, I'll see about using them. **

**Oh yeah, Desert Rose is for sale! The site is posted on my profile. **

**Yay for me! **

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. If you said something and I didn't reply to you... er... sorry! I'll get you next time. **

Chapter 7- Pre-Calc Blues

Violet and Nyx found their usual seat in the back of the room for pre-calc. Alexander, trusty lap-dog that he was turning out to be, followed dutifully in their path. He made sure to keep Nyx between Violet and him. He hadn't fully forgotten the greeting she had given him last night. Girls.

The teacher, a haunted and pale looking man with his hands stuffed in deep pockets in her oversized sweater, entered the room. "Homework, board, now," he said, brusquely, eyeing the students with all the bright cheeriness that a teacher can maintain with their first class of the day.

There was an immediate scramble of movement as everyone rushed to get to the board, so not to be left as the poor soul left with the hardest problem. Alexander sighed, lazily, entwining his fingers behind his head and stretching his back.

"Is there a problem Mr… ah…" the teacher paused, taking his hands out of his pockets to leaf through a role-book. Alexander felt a wave of nausea wash over him as he looked at his hands, if that's what you could call them. They were twisted, gnarled, some fingers completely molded to others to make movement next to impossible. Alexander wondered what happened to make such severe injuries. "Alexander Foxx," the teacher finally said. "Well, this might be your first day, but I still expect you to have your homework. Am I going to have to take points off on your first day?"

Alexander, still unnerved by seeing the teacher's gnarled hands, shook his head quickly. "No, sir. I did it."

"Put a problem on the board then," he snapped. "And Tyler will do."

Alexander pulled the page out of his three-ring binder and stumbled up to the board. "Told you so," Nyx said, evilly, from his side. He gave her an unpleasant look.

"Three's already done," someone remarked from his side as he began writing down a problem. Alexander sighed, picking up the felt eraser and erasing the problem.

"I'm doing two," Amanda snapped. As Alexander gazed blankly at her a moment, wondering how she was looking so alive and fresh after… well, after last night, she quickly scribbled down the problem. He sighed, and shook himself out of his stupor. He must get at least one easy problem on the board. He did not want to be the one stuck doing the hardest problem in front of the whole class and the rather frightening teacher.

"Psst…" he hissed to Violet, who was returning to her seat. "This teacher?" he asked by way of question.

She shot him with a rather unpleasant look. "He's one of the Orphans," she said finally.

"He can read minds!" he nearly shouted. Why hadn't anyone told him? He tried to recall what he'd been thinking since he walked in the room. There was definitely some dangerous information in there.

Violet shook her head, vaguely, noting that Tyler was watching them. Tyler was no mind-reader, so of course, Violet didn't have any real problem with him. He had a gift with numbers, specifically codes. There was no algorithm, lock or safe that was secure from his abilities. He barely even had to work to break some codes. He could see the numbers as easily as the sun or the moon. Isabel often joked that it was a good thing that he was on their side. She would hate to be his enemy.

Alexander didn't know any of this, though. He gazed nervously at Tyler, waiting for him to try and eat him or something equally unpleasant.

"Mr. Foxx," Tyler said, expectantly. "There is still one problem to put on the board. If you would please discontinue gazing into empty space, perhaps you would get closer to putting it up."

_Ouch_, he thought with a wince. He made a mental note that he did not like Tyler at all. It was a good class to skip, in his opinion. Mean teacher, stupid subject, early morning. Yeah… perfect skip period. "Uh… what number is it?" he asked, still standing awkwardly at the front of the room, everyone else having finished putting their problems up.

"Number thirteen," he said, shortly, eyeing him carefully though his thin wire glasses.

Alexander glanced down at his paper, and winced. Number thirteen. Damn it. His tricks could only take him so far. The Elders warned him of this continuously. He had pretty useful tricks, they let him do just about anything he wanted, but he, like all Nosophori, _hated _the number thirteen. His tricks had skipped that problem.

He looked at the problem, a slight sweat beginning to collect on the back of his neck as he felt the pressure of Tyler's glare increase. Number thirteen. Of course, number thirteen was the hardest problem. It was just like a thirteen to be purposefully obstinate. His tricks wouldn't touch it, and he couldn't solve it.

"Mr. Foxx, we're waiting," Tyler snapped, tapping one gnarled hand on the desk, impatiently.

"I didn't understand that one," he muttered. He wondered if it was possible for his cheeks to feel any hotter without needing a fire extinguisher. His eyes scanned the room for an escape… he half hoped someone's powers would malfunction, cause an earthquake so vast that a fissure would appear in the ground, that he could fall into and rid himself of this severe embarrassment. What was this anyway? High school?

Oh yeah. It was.

"Then put your attempt on the board and we will solve it from there," Tyler said, as if speaking to someone impeccably stupid. Someone snickered at the right of the room.

Alexander decided that he really _really_ didn't like Tyler. He could see where this was going. Tyler probably knew that he hadn't even made an attempt of that problem, but if he told him that, he had no doubt he would get detention for not completing the assignment. It was a Friday. He did not want detention that night.

Of course, he had absolutely no idea how to do the problem, so his only other option was to stand in front of the classroom, making a total dag of himself.

He picked up the chalk, feeling its gritty, dusty texture as a sort of omen to his freedom. He pressed the chalk to a blank part of the chalk board.

A familiar pale hand took the chalk from his hand. He glanced up, surprised at being pardoned of his sentence, and met the exasperated brown gaze of Violet. She plowed through the problem without a single pause for calculating or glancing at her notes. She returned back to her seat just as quickly.

"Thank you Violet for coming to the salvation of our new arrival," Tyler said dryly. He turned to Alexander. "Well, don't just stand there. Return to your seat."

Alexander needed no more invitation to comply. He hastened to the back of the room, not before he managed to hit his foot on a chair that was haphazardly arranged in the aisle. The sound of it scraping the floor brought another series of snickers through the classroom. Alexander's face got, if possible, hotter. He sank into his seat, resting his cherry red face on his arms in a meek attempt to hide his embarrassment.

A wad of paper hit his ear. He glanced up and met the twin glares of Violet and Nyx. Hastily, he unfolded the paper. _Sit up and pay attention or you'll get more shit_, it read in Nyx's artistic and slightly gothic script. He nodded and pushed himself back up, willing himself to pay attention as Tyler ruthlessly corrected the problems on the board.

Another wad of paper rolled onto his desk. It contained only a single word in Violet's messy, cramped scrawl. _Secret? _

He glanced at her. She was staring at him, mistrust written plainly on her features. He looked back down at the note. What secret? They looked similar enough that it should be obvious. Unless of course…

Unless Violet didn't know what she was.

Violet raised her hand. "Yes, Violet?" Mr. Foxx said, pausing in his description of a problem. Alexander noted that he didn't treat her with near the disdain he did any of the other students. He remembered the ease in which she had solved the hardest problem of the homework and felt he had a good guess as to why. Math geeks stuck together, after all.

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"Take the pass," he said, gesturing to a woebegone scrap of paper on his desk.

Two minutes later, Nyx's hand shot up. "Yes, Nicole?" Tyler asked. There was another series of snickers as Nyx's real name was used. She ignored them. Alexander was impressed. That took talent.

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"When Violet returns," Tyler said, curtly, turning back to the board to show how to use the quotient rule when a higher power coefficient was on the top of a fraction.

"This is an emergency," Nyx said

"I'm sure it can wait five minutes."

"It really can't." Nyx started fidgeting in her seat a little, as if to prove her point.

"Nicole," Tyler said, warningly, hitting her with a glare that made Alexander want to run and hide.

"Tyler," she said pleasantly, shooting him her trademark malicious smile.

"You can wait." It was not a question.

"Are you really going to tell a girl that she has to wait to use the bathroom? We have more than one kind of emergency after all."

This statement had the simultaneous affect of all the girls shooting Nyx a look of pity and Tyler a look of distaste, and all the guys shuddering in their seats, blocking out the implication of feminine biology. Nyx looked at Tyler, expectantly. She knew she had won.

Tyler jerked his head toward the door. "Go," he snapped, curtly.

Nyx stood up, pushing her colorful strands of hair out her face, and exited the room, her too-large flip-flops making a clip-clop sound to announce her departure.

"Back to the lesson," Tyler said, forcefully, but Alexander was still watching the door that both Violet and Nyx had left through. Damn, those two were good.

"Okay, spill," Nyx said when she got in the bathroom. Violet was sitting on the tacky faux-leather couch underneath the window, her elbows resting on her knees, chin in hands. Nyx took a seat beside her. "What is it with you and Alexander? Does it have something to do with what John said last night?"

Violet nodded. "John said I'd be coming into my powers soon."

Nyx gazed at her best friend, blankly. "Vi," she said, carefully, remembering how she had lost her temper the night before. "You're human."

"John doesn't think so," she said with a shrug, at the same time hoping that he was, for once, wrong.

Nyx shook her head. "Even if you have Mythic blood, you have no idea when you were born. You have to be born on the thirteenth for it to show up."

"I know that," Violet snapped. "John said he had a vision of me, though."

Nyx waited for her to get her head in order to share the vision.

"He said in the vision I had a black eye, and my clothes were kind of torn up," she explained, finally, touching her tenderly throbbing eye beneath her glasses. Both Nyx and she understood that this meant that whatever John had seen in his vision, it was going to happen in the next couple weeks, before her black eye healed. "He said that somehow I had managed to stop time."

"Damn," Nyx swore. She had sucky powers; they were good for absolutely nothing. Stopping time was the exact opposite. It was such a potent power, it was dangerous. Outside of Haven, she would be in danger of someone plucking her up and Controlling her for their own gains.

"Yeah," Violet said, agreeing to her friend's unspoken statements. "Sucks doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Nyx said, softly, copying Violet's body language and resting her chin on her hands. "What does any of this have to do with Alexander then?"

"I'm not really sure," she admitted. "John said he has a secret though, and it has something to do with me."

"And you thought that punching him would get him to tell you?" Nyx asked, dryly.

Violet laughed. "Well, I kind of hoped helping him with the math problem would redeem me."

Nyx smiled to herself, an idea blossoming in her brain. "I think I can get him to tell me," she said.

"Why would he tell you?" Violet asked.

Again, she gave her freaky savage grin. "Oh, well, I think he likes me."


	8. Chapter 8 Splat

**Okay, I'd just like to point out that this chapter was extremely difficult to write. I have such a new, jarring respect for JK Rowling, who is capable of explaining quidditch without any holes in the imagery, and quidditch has a lot more people than splat. If you notice any moments in this chapter where something just doesnt make sense, please point it out. I've been working on it quite a while, but you never know. **

**Also, I'm kind of worried about the way the smaller parts of this story is unfolding. I want it to seem like a normal highschool, but without turning into a hopeless cliche like Lizzie McGuire or something. If you see any parts that are just too... stereotype, unrealistic, too realistic, cliche, stupid... PLEASE POINT THEM OUT! **

**That is all. Thankyou to everyone who's reviewed. I did update pretty quickly. I think its only been a week. **

Chapter 8—Splat

"You don't understand," Nyx said to Alexander for the hundredth time. Her patience was wearing thin by the fiftieth. Right now she only wanted to tear his head off. "This has nothing to do with you being new. It has everything to do with the fact the Violet and I _do not want to lose_." Terrible things happened to the people who lost in Splat. They couldn't risk the chance of letting a newbie in their ranks.

So in many ways, it was because Alexander was still new.

"I'm telling you, I'll pick it up quick. I mean, how bad can it be? You have five people to retrieve a floating egg, and half of the school can fly."

Nyx and Violet remained adamantly resolved in their decision. Together, they crossed the front gates of the school and onto the grounds, headed for a sparsely wooded area near the Splat field (It looked remarkably like a football stadium, except with two brown harnesses that hovered fifty feet in the air, holding a precariously balancing egg). Amanda's team was already their, conferring their strategies, along with a large portion of the school that were filling the stands.

"Get out," Amanda ordered, the moment she noticed them coming. "You're not playing us today. Not after that freak thing you did to me this morning."

Nyx noticed that Alexander suddenly turned a brilliant shade of red.

"I didn't do anything besides help you," Violet snarled. "While everyone else was sitting and gawking, I was the only one who took action."

"Weird how you knew so much about what was wrong with me, isn't it?" Amanda quipped, tossing her waves of lustrous brown curls over her shoulder. "What did it look like, again? Oh yeah, I remember." The Amanda that they had been looking at suddenly blinked out of sight to be matched by a dual image of Violet. The Violet-copy put on a mockingly stupid voice, clapping her long hands on her cheeks. "Oh my gosh, I do think I've seen this before. Oh, right, that's 'cause I actually did this to her. Too bad I'm such a freak that I can't even remember using powers." Amanda rematerialized from the Violet copy; eyebrows raised pertly, hands resting jauntily on her hips.

Violet did her very best to swallow her anger. "Look, _Brizo_," she snapped, using the girl's Mythic name, because it was obvious she was in form. The guys on her team were drooling over her every word, after all. "The game-schedule says were playing you today. If you don't want to, that's fine. It's an automatic disqualification and you let us proceed to the next level."

Brizo smirked, and Nyx new the girl had a hidden ace that she was going to deal. "Actually, honey, you're disqualified because you no longer have a full team."

Nyx frowned. "What do you mean? We have me, Vi, Kim, Julia, Mike and Kyle. That's six."

Brizo gave anther condescending little smirk and patted Nyx's head. Nyx jerked her head out of the way, looking as if she would like nothing more than to grab Amanda's hand and bit it off. "Did you think that Kyle would stay on your team after he learned that one of your members wanted to kill me? You're so cute, Nicole."

"It's Nyx," she snapped, with a glare to Kyle. He gave a sheepish shrug, as if to say, _she made me do it_. 'Of course she made you do it,' she wanted to scream back. 'She's the charmer! You're supposed to fight _against_ that!'

"So, since you have no substitutes… you were barely able to scramble together an entire team in the first place, your disqualified. Get lost." Brizo made an endearing shooing motion with her hands, like a rich snot trying to ward off a rabid dog.

"Wait, your team does have a substitute," Julia said, finally arriving from her last class. Julia had the perpetual habit of lateness. Her instincts were mostly animalistic, and animals didn't usually have a great sense of time.

Violet shook her head, sadly. They didn't have a substitute. They had barely managed to salvage up enough players to make a team.

"Yes, you do," Julia insisted. "I saw it in the locker rooms as I came here. Brand-new print-out."

"I don't believe it," Amanda said.

Kim smiled, confidently examining her nails. "Let's go down and check it then."

"I'm game," Alexander piped up for the first time, for he had a pretty strong feeling about who the substitute was.

"Alright," Brizo conceded, finally. "But if this is a waste of my time, I'm going to make your entire team's life hell," she added, glaring at all six of the team members.

Kim rolled her eyes. "And that would be different, how?" she muttered under her breath.

Amanda's team (consisting of Amanda, Jacob, Kyle, Brian, Hannah and Claire), Nyx's diminished team, and Alexander headed at a brisk pace to the edge of the stadium wall, where doors were for the locker rooms. They were greeted upon entering with the stale scent of mildew and stagnant air, mixed to a ripe stench with sweat and sickeningly sweet aerosol freshener.

"It's posted on Blech's office door," Julia stated, using the common nickname for the gaseous gym teacher. "See," she pointed, when they found it. "Substitute, team thirteen, Alexander Foxx."

Alexander punched the air in victory, giving a shout of glee. Violet's already desperate expression became, if possible, more crestfallen. Nyx had proceeded to knock her head against the wall. "Ow. Ow. Ow."

Amanda, on the other hand, couldn't be more pleased. "Oh, these odds I'll take. Wait until you hear the task I have for you guys after you lose." She grinned, grabbing Kim's chin and pulling the technology-witch forward. "Thanks for the help, chica. See you in ten." Amanda's team exited the locker room, leaving a very forlorn team thirteen in their wake.

"_Alexander_!" Nyx cried, incredulously, when she was sure the other team was out of earshot. "Why not make our substitute a chicken! At least we could eat it for fuel after we're beaten into the ground!"

Kim shrugged. "Look, it was the best I could do. No one wants to be on team thirteen with you on it. You're kind of a magnet for bad luck."

"Ever think it was the freaking number?" Alexander snapped, both insulted by the general consensus of his ineptitude and disgusted by the unfortunate team number. Stinking thirteens.

He took a deep breath to calm down his anger. "Look, just tell me the rules, and I'll catch on to the actual game as fast as I can."

Julia, probably the only one on his side because she was too trustworthy to be against him, explained. "Well, you see it's actually pretty easy. There are six players on each team. There's a ground protector, who waits underneath the cradle incase the egg falls out. There's the air protector, who waits with the cradle as kind of a goalie. There are two flyers, who try to get the other team's egg, and two criers, whose job is to distract the other team's flyers from getting to their egg. The only other thing is that we're allowed to use our powers however we want."

Alexander looked at the shape-changer doubtfully. "Any way we want?"

Julia tried to think of a time where an acceptation had been made to that rule, but could think of none. "Pretty much, yeah."

Alexander thought of his tricks. Mythics, no matter how convenient their powers were, were still limited to the range of those powers. Julia could shape-change into any animal she wanted, but if she was attacked, it would still require her to get close enough to her assailant to fight back. Kim could control any form of technology, but if she was lost in the middle of a forest, she would be completely helpless. For him, his tricks were limitless. If he could dream it, he could do it. This was the biggest advantage he had over their kind. For this situation, it looked to be a remarkably convenient advantage. "Then let's figure out whose playing what," he suggested finally.

Nyx finally spoke, a patch of red blossoming on her forehead. "Well, I'm always a crier. Vi does ground, Julia air. Uh… Mike, you're a flyer, right? And Circe? Does anyone want to trade parts?"

"I want to be a flyer," Violet said, immediately.

Julia looked at her oddly. "But you can't fly."

"Neither can Circe," Violet snapped. It seemed that this was an old argument.

"There's more than one way to fly," Kim said by way of explanation for her lack of ability. She was able to reverse the static energy in her shoes and the static energy in the Splat field to repel each other, thusly making her 'fly'.

"Violet, you're still ground protector," Mike said, and everyone nodded in agreement. Violet wasn't sure if it was because they thought he was right, or because Mike's second form was Hades. "Alexander, you'll have to be our other flyer. Just follow Nyx, okay. She's the best crier in the school."

Nyx winked at him. "Don't worry, I'll protect you."

They headed for the field, with mixed feelings of trepidation and nerves. Amanda's team, team seven, was already there, their players set up, no doubt a strategy imprinted into their brains.

Brian was their ground protector, with Jacob standing a little ways behind him, waiting for the game to officially start before he could fly to be the air protector. Amanda, the second best crier in the school, was paired with a very happy looking Kyle, and Hannah and Claire were perched precariously on the springboard, to get an extra push off for flying.

Isabel was coaching the game today. "Alright, let's not see any lost souls," she looked pointedly as Mike. "Severe burns," she glanced at Jacob. "Or technical mishaps." Kim became suddenly interested in her fingernails. "Let's have a fun game here—I'm serious Amanda. Alright, positions please." Isabel waited a moment, as team thirteen got to their starting places. "Change on the whistle. Three, two…" Isabel brought her fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle. Immediately, each person shifted into their second form, and the game began.

The flyers from team seven immediately took to the air. Hannah, now Harpy, spread her powerful black wings and gained altitude, as a snake-like vine erupted from the turf of the field to lift Demeter through the air.

A tendril of vine tried to wrap around Hades to distract him, but he just drifted, eerily, out of its path and glanced at the earth-child. Immediately, the vine shriveled up underneath her, completely and utterly dead.

Using the distraction Circe charged her shoes to get closer to the egg. She couldn't go very high, but she was already planning how to use the energy from the lights to give her shoes an extra charge. Her progression was halted when a blast of flame landed in front of her, tearing a smoldering hole into the ground. She glanced up and saw Apollo floating lazily above the egg cradle, giving her a little wave. He blew her a kiss.

"Nyx!" Circe shouted at the top of her lungs. A black shadow streaked past, taking a running jump for Apollo. His hands wreathed with flame as he braced himself for the assault.

Instead of feeling the heavy pound of a body running into another body, he felt a weird rush of cold as Nyx passed straight through him. She twisted around in mid-air, falling back to the ground, but not before she blinked. The fire in Apollo's hand extinguished. It was just another form of light, after all.

She winced as she continued to fall, but felt her progression slow, against all laws of physics. She looked up surprised, and saw Alexander nod at her. She mouthed her thanks.

Meanwhile, Harpy and Artemis were in the thick of battle above team thirteen's cradle. Artemis shifted shape quickly and constantly, never letting the cradle out of her grasp, but Harpy had razor sharp talons that grew on demand. While Artemis's body regenerated itself after each change (wounds and injuries didn't carry over to the DNA of the hundreds of animals in her bloodstream), it still hurt being constantly and unceasingly scratched.

Artemis shifted into an octopus, hanging upside down and hanging onto the cradle with her eight suction cupped arms. Harpy shrieked and dived for her bulbous head, talons out and ready. Just as she was about to strike, Artemis shifted once more. Harpy, greeted with the spiny barbs of a porcupine in her hands and arms, tumbled out of the sky.

Violet jumped out of the way, and Harpy hit her with a rather savage glare, bounding forward as tears of pain blurred her eyes. Violet glanced around for something she could use for aid. "Circe! The lights!"

This team had been playing together for a long time, and so when one called another for help, no one stopped and stared, or took precious seconds to figure out what to do. It was immediate and instinctive action. The stadium lights suddenly turned on, and Harpy's sensitive eyes closed, momentarily blinded. Violet used these precious seconds to unlace her sneakers, knotting the laces together to form a sort of makeshift ninja throwing star. Estimating the required angle of trajectory and initial force, she tossed the sneakers. They wrapped themselves firmly around Harpy's ankles, making her stumble to the ground. Her hands, completely useless from the barbs, would be of no assistance to untangle them.

Hades noticed a brief chance to get closer to the opponents' egg, and he drifted forward. Nyx's continuous blinking stopped any fireballs, and he was able to fly higher than Circe. He stopped suddenly, when he felt someone pull at his shoulder. It was Violet.

"What are you doing all the way over here?" he asked, enraged. "Get back to the cradle!"

"Shut up, Mike. We have to fall back. Artemis can't hold them off."

"But I'm so close! Circe can't reach the cradle."

"Let me take care of it."

Hades drifted to their home side of the field to assist Artemis, as Violet continued to aide Circe. "Here, let me give you a boost."

Circe glanced at her, her face drenched in sweat, her dark hair plastered to her forehead. "Shove off, Brizo," she snapped. Violet blinked out of existence, replaced by a stunningly radiant Brizo.

"How'd you know, witch?" she asked, cruelly. Circe glared at her, until she yelped in shock and pain. Her cell phone was melting in her pocket.

"Violet doesn't have a cell phone." She left the girl to fish the burning phone out of her pocket to figure out how to get to the suspended egg cradle. Some of the charge was beginning to leave her shoes. With every other step, her feet hit the floor.

"Where do you think your going?" Brian, now Centaur, asked her, pawing his massive hooves on the ground. Circe looked at those hooves mistrustingly, knowing full well just how much power one of his kicks could manage.

He reared back on his hind legs, front hooves flailing. Circe ducked out of the way, shuffling her feet on the ground to increase the static electricity once more. When Centaur's feet hit the ground, it had the effect of making the entire field shudder and tremble. On the other side of the field, Violet was able to maintain her balance. So close to the source of the tremor, Circe toppled clumsily to the ground. Centaur kicked her out of the way before she could find her feet. Instinctively, she latched onto one of his powerful hooves, and as he reared, she was lifted up. She tumbled blindly through the air, heart hammering in her chest as she forgot about the game and just thought about how bad it was going to hurt to hit the ground.

She landed on Centaur's back.

Without hesitation, she scrambled to right herself, straddling Centaur's back like her horse back home on the ranch. "What! Get off of me!" he roared, and tried to twist around to remove her. His back was not particularly flexible though, definitely not jointed to remove a skilled rider from his back. He bucked and span, but she held fast.

_Okay, now what?_ Circe thought, as her head jerked around with the spastic motion of Centaur. The only technology Centaur had was a watch. She couldn't stand on his back to reach the egg cradle, unless he would be kind enough to hold still. If she tried to roll off his back, he would probably kick her to the other side of the field. She wondered is Epione would be able to piece her back together after such a fall.

She decided to hold on for dear life and hope he tired soon.

Hades was headed in a full out sprint to the other end of the field, using his legs because they were faster than the eerie drift he was capable of. Alexander's skinny arm halted his progression. "Uh, hello! Their egg is _that_ way."

"Violet said she needed help," Hades explained hurriedly. "Let go of me!"

"It was Brizo, you moron! Get the egg!"

Hades swore, doubling back to team seven's cradle. He barely made it three feet before Brizo rushed up to him, smiling perfectly, warmly. Hades felt the saliva dry from his mouth, his very heartbeat stop. Distantly, he was aware that she was using her powers for charm against him, making him soft and willing to do whatever she wanted. Idly, he wished he was gay. Brizo's charm never worked on girls.

"Where were you going?" she asked softly, and her very breath smelled like the sweet tang of life. She could mold herself into exactly what he wanted. He was death. He could feel it lingering in every single being—human, animal or plant. His powers could only hurt and kill. And she was the literal embodiment of _life_.

"No where," he breathed.

"I didn't think so." She stepped away, and Hades felt as if his heart was being torn out with her. He sunk down to the floor, resting his head on the frost covered turf. Frozen ash was beginning to sprinkle through the air. There was irony in that.

Alexander came up from behind him. "What are you doing!"

Hades was silent for crucial seconds of the game. "You might want to find Demeter," he finally said, not moving from his position on the ground.

Alexander swore and scanned the field. Demeter… what was her power? He racked his brain for Mythic knowledge. It had something to do with plants. She made them grow, become animated, even react. He looked around, trying to find any sign of the girl. There!

The moment Hades had stopped causing her plants to die, the vines around her sprung to life, lifting her into the air, toward Artemis and Violet. He looked over at Nyx, but she was busy keeping Apollo from blowing anyone up. He could tell her concentration was breaking, for there were small burn marks on her face, from when she didn't completely douse a fireball and it singed her skin. Circe was in no hurry to get the egg, currently being thrown around by Centaur, desperately trying to stay on. Artemis and Violet would only be able to hold off Demeter for a couple seconds. He had to get the egg before she did.

He didn't think, didn't plan. It was immediate, instinctive action. He remembered how Violet had been able to use her knack for physics to optimize his tricks, making it seem like he could fly. He bolted for the springboard that aided the flyers initial take off, and jumped with all his might. His tricks made him hover, but the force of the springs pushing him into the air pushed him into the air, the rough equivalent to flight. He whipped through the air, over the heads of the immobilized Hades, the shifting Brizo, the bucking Centaur, toward Apollo and the egg cradle.

Apollo was one of those walking contradictions that the world tries and fails to figure out. He was a ladies man; he knew he was in fact, God's gift to women. Unlike most pigheaded, egotistical slime-balls, he was also insufferably intelligent. Instead of cursing or screaming when something made him angry or surprised him, he would usually shout out a completely random, unrelated word that most people had never even heard of.

As he saw Alexander clumsily careening toward him, a hand outstretched to snatch the egg, his own powers completely useless with the freak blinking away all of his fire below, he decided it was more than appropriate timing to belt out one of those famous words he was known for. He liked this one, too. It had a lusty ring to it. "Phantasmagoric!" he swore.

Alexander's hand was mere inches away from the egg when he said the word. His eye widened, he made a strange noise, as if choking.

He fell.

Demeter got the egg.

The game was over.

Alexander cursed fluently as his back hit the cold ground. He _hated_ thirteens. Phantasmagoric. Thirteen letters. Thirteen disgusting, repulsive, grotesque letters. He looked at Apollo, who was slowly drifting back to the ground, a smug smile on his face. He probably didn't _need_ to feed after he had just munched last night, but this guy had pulled a thirteen letter word on him. That was just criminal.

Yeah, he decided he was hungry enough.

* * *

"Now, what seems to be the problem?" Isabel asked the other founders and Eris. They were all sitting in her office. They would have used John's, but students were known for coming in and out without knocking, and this was a very classified conversation.

Eris raised her electric blue eyebrows. "I don't think you were talking about that Splat game, were you?" She looked carefully at Isabel, then Raven and John. "Is it always that…uh… intense?"

Raven shook her head, knuckling her eyes tiredly. "There's something going on between that year of students," she said, with the utmost surety.

John nodded his agreement. "I've seen these Splat games before. They can get pretty competitive, but I heard what Circe was feeling for a moment there. She was afraid for her life. Apollo wanted to do actual physical harm to Nyx and Brizo…" he paused, looking at his wife. "How far do Brizo's powers extend?"

"Her shape-changing has to be of an actual person, one that she's had a visual of. Her charm works the best on men."

"Hmm," he hummed, in thought.

"What did you hear from her?" Isabel asked, wondering what his pondering look was for.

"I'm not sure what, exactly. It was a kind of anger, yes, but it was almost a defensive, frightened anger. She's never used her powers against another student to that degree, I know for certain. Mike is still shaken, and it's been a whole hour. Something must have set her off."

Eris leaned over a little to stack some of the coffee cookies resting in a circular tin on the table in her hand. "Well, what made her so scared?"

"That's the million dollar question," Raven said, dryly.

Isabel bit her lip, thinking. "This is the first time in recorded history that Mythics have become organized, right?" she asked, rhetorically. "Well, it seemed strange to me as to why. Our ancestor's date all the way back to ancient Greece, maybe even further. Why has it taken us so long to work as one?" She looked at the other Mythics, meeting their eyes to enforce her urgency. "I think someone has prevented it for all these thousands of years."

Eris looked doubtful. "Isabel… this isn't to sound rude, but life isn't like some huge conspiracy theory or something. We've never come together before because there was never any reason to. In ancient times, they could have lived perfectly fine in their villages, and if worst came to worst, the world was still unpopulated and uncultivated. They could have just lived in the rural areas."

"So what about now?" Isabel asked. "We didn't just die out for the Industrial Revolution to come back again at the millennium. There were Mythics throughout all that time, and the world was not fit to compensate us. Why didn't we reform?"

"Fear?" Raven suggested. "You were the one who used to enforce how important it was to keep our second shape a secret. Others would persecute us, hurt us. We've never organized because we were afraid."

Isabel pulled out her laptop from under her chair and placed it on the coffee table, next to the cookie tin. She opened up a program she had designed specifically for this explanation. "Say there are mice in a field. To control the population of the mice in the field, there are snakes who eat the mice. The snake population is controlled by the hawks, who eat the snakes." As she spoke, a slide animation acted out her words on the computer

"Yeah," John said, slowly, not fully understanding the point of this ecology lesson.

"Well, let's think of normal humans as the mice." The mice on the computer screen molded into Homo sapiens, carrying brief cases and walking through a crowded city. "And Mythics as the snakes."

"I've never eaten a human," Eris said, making a face. "Doesn't sound particularly appetizing so don't ask me to start."

"I'm not going to," Isabel said, exasperatedly. "But natural selection, nature itself, insists that there is some kind of controlling factor for each population. We are the controlling factor for the human population."

Raven was beginning to understand, but noticed a snag in the theory. "So if humans are mice, and Mythics are snakes, who's the hawks in the equation?"

"That is the real million dollar question," Isabel said. "And from what I've heard from you," she nodded at John. "I think our students might be stumbling across the answer."

**just for the record, i don't know the answer yet, either. teehee! **


	9. Chapter 9 Losers

**This chapter is not particularly long, but I think it reveals a lot about the personalities of the characters. Also, the punishment for losing the Splat game is revealed... of course the action of the punihsment does not occur in this chapter, making this the second worst cliffie I've ever posted. Sorry about that. I'm arleady working on the next chapter so... I'll get there. **

**Oh yea, I'M GRADUATING ON FRIDAY! This makes me very happy. Of course, it also means I mgiht not update this week like I usually do. I'll do my best though. **

Chapter 9—Losers

Team thirteen waited miserably in the locker rooms, waiting for team seven to complete celebrating their victory and assign them the infamous task. Even in his state of perpetual feeling sorry for himself-ness, Alexander noted a few things weird about this school.

Girls and boys shared the same locker rooms. Violet had shamelessly changed out of her heavy sweat pants and t-shirt, back into her school uniform. Mike had looked up briefly, distractedly, but then returned to gazing indifferently at his sneakers. It didn't seem at all unusual for him.

For Alexander, it was nuts. Where he lived, it was a kind of taboo to change in front of the opposite sex, unless they were married… or performers. Performers did weird stuff like that. These Mythics were barely even friends though.

He knew if he went to an all human school, they would have the same leeriness of the Mythic habits as he did. It seemed to be a strange side-effect to your body no longer being able to be simply packed up and put away in a school health book. Each one of them had a slightly different physical anatomy, but no one was ashamed of it. They were more comfortable in their own skin, skin that could randomly grow scales or burst into flame or embody shadow, than most humans. There was a sort of pride in that, fearlessly showing off every unique little quirk with unmatched confidence.

"This is such shit," Nyx hissed, slamming her heel against the metal locker. "You know the punishment is going to be vile, too." She glanced at Alexander briefly when she said this, as if to say, 'it's all your fault'.

"What was the last punishment we had?" Mike asked, easing his body down to lie on the bench. His head rested on Julia's lap, comfortably. "It's been so long since we've lost."

"I think we got off easy last time," Violet said. She and Nyx were sitting on the floor in front of the bench, back to back to support the other's weight. Nyx's head was tilted almost all the way back, resting on Violet's shoulder. "We just had to camp out in the courtyard for the night, but Kim had some gadget to keep us warm so it wasn't that bad."

Kim smiled, remembering the gadget like an old friend. "Yeah, that was a good one." She was hanging upside down on the bench, her dark hair falling onto the gross locker room floor, her long legs stretched out to rest on the lockers.

Alexander looked at them as he leaned against the lockers, and realized there was no place for him. The team wasn't friends; they were barely forced acquaintances. Yet they seemed to fit together in all of their dysfunction. He could see it with the way they sat together, relapsing into an old, familiar position, taking comfort from the knowledge that they weren't alone in their strangeness, their oddity. He never had that from where he came from. Nosophori weren't big on unnecessary touch. He felt oddly left out and…

_Alone_.

"Pull up some floor," Nyx offered, noticing the forlorn written in his amethyst eyes. "We could be waiting down here for ages."

Alexander took up the offer, and tried to find a way to seat his long, awkward limbs comfortably. Violet seemed able to do it. Why was he having such a problem?

"Here," Nyx offered. She stretched her own legs out flat, then took his head in her hands, guiding it to rest on her stomach. Her arm was draped haphazardly across his chest.

"Thanks," he murmured in response, a blush heating up his cheeks at the thought of unnecessary physical contact, but a warm surge blossoming in his stomach at the thought of inclusion into this mismatched group.

They waited for an indefinable amount of time. It could have been an hour and it could have been fifteen minutes. Every so often, someone would offer a thought lazily, sleepily. Sometimes another would reply. Most of the time they would simply nod in agreement and continue waiting.

It was an acceptance. They had lost. There was nothing they could do about it. Amanda was going to give them a task that would make them want to die. There was nothing they could do about it. The fun competition was taken out of the Splat game. There was nothing they could do about it.

"Comfy?" Amanda's voice punctured the otherwise comfortable silence. The rest of her team filed in behind her, bringing with them the smell of the cold from outside.

Nyx hummed softly, half asleep. She sighed deeply, stretching her arms over her head. "Quite. What have you got for us?" She shook her head in an attempt to shake the sleep away.

"Well, you kind of have to get up first," Amanda pointed out.

"Actually," Kim pointed out, cleverly. "Our action is dependent entirely on what you say. If you don't say anything, we don't have to get up."

"It's not like you can stay down here all night," Kyle said.

No one replied immediately, though Brian was sure she heard Violet mutter "Traitor" under her breath.

Amanda was not happy by the lack of intimidation, anger, or frustration from the losing team. "Get up," she ordered. "I'll explain your task as we go." Grumpily, the losing team untangled themselves from each other and found their feet. "Excellent," Amanda said, pleased. "Follow me."

They left the smelly locker room in favor of the cold evening air. Amanda led them confidently through the grounds, into the courtyard and finally into the backdoor of the cafeteria, near the kitchens.

"Your task is simple," Amanda said, smiling. "All you have to do is go into the walk-in freezer, and stay there until we let you out."

She was met with blank stares from the losing team. "Is that it?" Nyx blurted, incredulously. That was probably the easiest punishment they had ever gotten. She and Mike couldn't feel the cold, Julia could just change into some kind of arctic creature to stay warm and Circe could break the freezer. Broken freezer meant no cold, and that just meant their biggest worry would be trying to eat all of the ice-cream before it melted. Say it isn't so!

Amanda smiled, and Violet knew that that most definitely wasn't it. "There's only one more thing. Mike," she latched onto his arm and pulled him forward. Mike winced from his touch, not forgetting what she had done to him at the game. "Take their souls."

"What!" the rest of the team screamed in response.

"He's not going to keep them," Amanda explained. "I'm not evil after all." She glared pointedly at Violet when she said that. "When I open the door to the freezer, he'll give them back."

Mike shook his head. "You don't understand what you're asking me to do."

"Of course I do. They won't _die_ without their souls. Their physical body still lives on."

Mike remained adamant. "You don't know what happens to their souls when I take them. They'd be better off dead."

"Well then maybe you should think of a different game to play," she suggested, sweetly.

"Amanda, this isn't a good idea," Kyle said, speaking for his old team. "What if something bad happened? We don't want anyone hurt."

She turned roughly, grabbing Kyle's shirtfront and yanking him forward. There was a primitive, desperately malicious look in her eye. For a fleeting moment, Violet saw Amanda become something different, something other than the super-model gorgeous girl. She was crude, ugly… and frightening. "Yes," she clarified for Kyle's sake. "We do." She pushed him away with enough force to send him tumbling. "Don't be such a human."

Violet looked at the remaining members of the team, closing in on them, surrounding them. If Mike didn't do what Amanda told him, this team would destroy them. If it came to a fight between the two groups, Amanda's would surely win. Their powers were strong, built for battle.

Amanda was waiting for the chance to hurt them.

It surprised Violet to realize she trusted Mike with her soul more than she trusted Amanda's entire team with her body.

"We're waiting," Amanda said, maliciously, glaring at Mike.

"I won't do it," he said, stonily.

Amanda glanced over to Jacob who smiled and lifted a hand. A crackling orange fire glowed across his fingertips, growing steadily in size. "Come again?" she said, innocently, as if she hadn't heard.

Stoically, Mike repeated himself. "I won't do it."

The fireball exploded in front of Mike, igniting his clothes. Nyx was blinking like crazy, putting it out before it burned his skin. Julia, kind sweet Julia who was never all there in the head, changed shape, becoming a sleek, powerful tiger. She crouched low, tail twitching, a growl surfacing in the back of her throat.

Violet gulped. She hated confrontations like this. Someone was going to get hurt. Suddenly, she understood. Amanda knew Mike wouldn't take their souls, no matter what. She would use it as an excuse to pick a fight. Fights at Haven were dangerous, full blown and extreme. They weren't limited by things like gravity, or physical contact. They could hurt someone just by looking at them.

People could die in these fights.

"I'll do it," Violet said, suddenly, her voice piercing the growing tension between them.

Mike gave her a horrified look. "You don't understand."

"I do," she interrupted. "And I trust you. Anyone else with me?"

Julia shifted back immediately. "I am."

"I am," Kim muttered, seeing Violet's reasoning.

"Me too." Nyx said it like a challenge, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Amanda as if to say "Do you want to make something of it?"

Alexander looked at the rest of the team like they were crazy, but then recalled a very important part of his genetic makeup. Mike couldn't take his soul. A Mythic couldn't touch it. "I'm in," he consented, finally.

"Take them, now. I want to see what happens."

Mike looked at his team members, pleading them not to do this. It was his worst nightmare, to take a soul and then lose it, rendering the victim a blank and hollow shell. He could take Amanda's without any regrets, let her live in her own personal hell for the remainder of her body's life. He had to keep track of the souls he took, though. If he lost them, he would never be able to forgive himself. "You're sure about this?"

They all nodded, without the slightest doubt.

"Alright, then," Mike said. He lifted his hands, slowly, the weight of the situation making them heavy as lead. Just as he was about to summon his powers, he looked up. He wasn't a particularly religious person, never contemplated the existence of a god, but he found himself giving a silent prayer. _Please, let me keep them safe_.

He could hear the screams of their souls as it was ripped from their body, he could hear the bodies crumble to the floor as the will to exist left them. He could feel himself being pushed into the freezer, felt the five shells being pushed in with him. He didn't register any of it though. His only thought was of the five souls he now possessed, that he was forcing into their own personal hell.


	10. Chapter 10 Hell

**I was having some technical difficulties posting this chapter... no idea why, but thank goodness it works now. An update in a mere twenty-four hours... damn I'm good. lol. I typed this all really, REALLY fast (just tell my wrists, which i beleive may actually be mildly sprained), so if you notice any typos that I didn't pick up on, please point them out. **

**I got a lot of positive feedback on the last chapter, soI hope you like this one. I'm starting a poll on who's hell you think is worst. So far its one for Nyx, one For Violet and one for Julia... anyone else wanna vote? **

Chapter 10—Hell

When the pain died away, that terrible, mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, heart-stopping pain, Nyx opened her eyes. Then closed them again.

She was blind. She couldn't see anything. She stretched her arms out, but could feel nothing. There was no smell, no sound. She wasn't even sure what was holding her stationary now. There was no floor underneath her back, no water to float on. It was like being suspended on nothing.

"Okay, Nyx, don't panic. Don't panic," she ordered herself. She couldn't hear her own voice. She wasn't even sure if she spoke. There was no familiar vibration of her voice box, or subtle rattle in her ear as sound met eardrum. She was trapped in infinite, impenetrable darkness.

She was afraid of the dark.

It seemed so unlikely that she, resident goth of Haven, the literal embodiment of night, could be frightened of the dark. She could see in any form of light. A full moon could turn a deep night into the middle of the afternoon for her. The slightest glint of a reflection of light would fill up the room. This was different, though. This was a dark so deep, so remarkably vast that even she couldn't see in it. This darkness was like death.

And then she panicked. She knew that this was going to be bad, that whatever happened to her after Mike took her soul would give her countless sleepless nights, wake her up in a cold sweat, screaming. She knew and accepted it, because the alternative was just as Violet thought. Someone would get killed.

This was beyond bad, though. This was her worst nightmare, completely and totally prone, without any hint or feeling of life besides for her own spinning, chaotic thoughts.

She couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't hear. Her body was only part of the darkness, molded and devoured by it. She might not even be here. She could be dead. She was dead.

She understood.

She was in Hell.

* * *

Julia was sprawled out at an awkward angle on sweet smelling grass. She opened her eyes blearily, and found herself in the middle of a vast grassland, stretching as far as the eye could see in any direction.

She trusted Mike. She trusted him more than life (which was ironic since he was death). When she pushed herself to her feet though, she felt a wave of doubt wash over her, making her stomach churn. Something bad was going to happen. Her animal instincts screamed in panic.

She took a step forward, then noticed something unusual about the feel of the grass beneath her foot. She looked down to see a brown, slender hoof in replace of her leg. "Oh dear," she said out loud, but all that came out was a startled whinny. She was a deer.

She tried to shift out of animal form, remembering the feel of two legs instead of four, of cognitive thought over animal instinct… and nothing happened. She tried again, but all that she could feel was the peaceful nature of the doe she took the shape of, the instinctual wariness to the wide open space. She was trapped in the form of an animal. How long would it be before the animal side instincts completely took over her human thought?

A sound rushed by her, sleek and powerful. She turned her head and saw a slender arrow stuck in the ground. The human in her blanched. The animal in her panicked. She was being hunted.

She forced herself to think like a human, like a person. As another arrow whirred past, that tiniest piece of humanity she had left exploded, disintegrated, disappeared. All that was in her was choking, mind-numbing instinct, and it screamed _flee_.

She leaped into the distance, her legs pumping, her heart pounding as she ran. She could smell the hunter behind her, catching up to her, with those tricky human weapons meant to hurt and destroy.

It was grassland for miles, with no place to hide, no place to disappear. She would run until she could run no more, until every step was agony, until her lungs exploded from use. Or until she was killed.

Something sharp and hard hit her shoulder. The muscle quivered and started to spasm in complaint of the steely arrow embedded into the flesh. A brief flicker of Julia penetrated the animal. She knew she had to take the arrow out, prevent the bleeding and bandage it. The humanness was once more squashed by the animal. Julia was no longer there.

She was only prey. And she was going to die.

* * *

There was a weird thing about Kim. She had Latina blood; her mother was Mexican. She had the same dark hair and olive skin as her mother's ancestors. Despite all that, she hated the heat. She preferred the snow and cold of her father's people, all Danish.

So, when she found herself on a desert island, the scorching sun pounding mercilessly on her back, she was intensely unhappy. Unhappy, but not panicked.

She pushed herself to her feet and walked to the edge of the island. It wasn't a very big island, and it was surrounded by turquoise ocean. Cool breakers frothed up to the shore, swirling around her ankles to rush back out to sea.

She plodded back to the middle of the island and plopped back onto the sandy ground. The sun was hot on her face. She was thirsty.

She stayed there for a while, with nothing but the gentle lap of water rushing in and out of the island, the heat of the sun crisping her olive brown skin. It took her a moment to identify the wetness swirling on her feet, the swell of coldness on her back.

She sat up abruptly, her hair sticking up with sand and salt water. The tide was coming in!

It took her a moment to take in the situation. One, the island would completely disappear after the tide came in completely. Two, Kim needed to find a way out.

She probed around with her powers. Her abilities were focused on technology. She just had to find one piece of technology… a lever, a pulley, a telephone line… and it would save her. In the back of her mind, she wondered how long she would be able to tread water when the island completely sunk. She pushed her mind away from that. She had a feeling that it wouldn't be long enough. She had to find a way to survive.

There was nothing. Sand and water. Water and sand. When she probed around with her consciousness, she could feel nothing stick out to her, speak to her with the possibility of use. Water was lapping around her shins.

There was nothing to make a boat out of, no flotation devices. She looked up into the azure sky, squinting into the blinding white light of the sun. There was no answer there.

She peered into the distance and saw pointed dorsal fins in the horizon. Oddly calm about facing her imminent disposal, she idly contemplated her chances that the sharks had computer chips, cell phone or ipods.

"Here fishy, fishy, fishy," she whispered nervously, then closed her eyes and prayed.

* * *

Violet thought she knew what cold was. It was the bitter January wind that whipped through the courtyard in Haven when she dared to brave the outdoors. It was the biting stab of sharpness cutting through her coat that could never seem to keep her warm enough.

This was beyond that. Cold couldn't begin to describe this. Frigid and freezing didn't even come close. Her hair and eyelashes were frozen in seconds, wreathed in a crown of icy frost. Her pale skin turned a delicate shade of purple, her lips an interesting blue. Her entire body shook with it, that nasty consuming iciness.

Violet thought she knew what cold was. No. She hadn't even known crisp before this.

_Stand up_, she ordered herself. She had to keep moving around, start her blood circulating again. It seemed like her red blood cells were turning into tiny little icicles moving through her veins. Ouch.

She pushed herself to her feet with difficulty, the bitter wind trying to knock her down again. She blinked quickly a few times, and noticed a definite coolness in her eyes. Her tears were freezing.

One foot, painfully following another. To plow her leg forward through the barren, icy landscape was like lifting lead weights. Too heavy. She was sleepy.

A sound smack across her own face brought her from her delirium. She couldn't sleep. She had seen enough movies to know that would be a very bad idea. It was all about moving. As long as she kept moving, she might not die. Hopefully.

This thought never went on for much longer, because the sound of shattering glass suddenly crunched beneath her feet. She looked down, to see her distorted reflection in cracking ice. This was bad.

Immediately her knowledge from physics came pouring through her brain. Ice would only break where the force of her weight was the strongest, so if she distributed the force of her weight evenly, it shouldn't break.

This meant she would need to lie down on the ice.

To lie down on the ice she would need to get to her knees, though. She had pretty bony legs. It would be a very focused force.

Gingerly, she lowered herself down, closing her eyes as they had started to burn with cold. She heard more cracks beneath her feet. She hit her knees, holding her breath in anxiety. There were a few more cracks, and she could feel the icy water start to bleed through the thick tights of her uniform. It didn't break through, though.

Carefully, oh so carefully, she stretched her body across the numbing ice, ignoring the cold in the light of more urgent catastrophes. She allowed herself a sigh of relief when she was all the way down, as safe as she was going to be.

_CCRACK! _

When the ice broke through, sending Violet into a frozen shock, she did not think _Oh, that's cold_ or _I ought to get out of the water, now_. There was no thought. When she hit the water, her body stopped, her mind stopped. The cold short circuited her brain. She ceased to function.

She did register how endlessly dark the water was, though.

* * *

Alexander stood with his hands tucked under his arms, bouncing up and down as his breath froze in front of him. Mike looked to be in a deep meditation, saying the same words to himself over and over again, his lips moving as he chanted his mantra under his breath. _I'll keep them safe. I'll keep them safe. _

He couldn't look at the other four members of the team without feeling upchuck wash into his throat. He'd seen dead people before. This wasn't like that. This was worse. They still breathed, their hearts still thumped, but their face. The expression on their faces couldn't be copied by the best actor in the history of the world. It couldn't even be described in a single word. It was fear, panic, repulsion, desperation, absolution… it was a face that made him suddenly believe in mercy killing. If he was seeing what made them look so twisted, he would want someone to kill him, too.

He was angry. No… beyond angry. This was livid, consuming, fiery _rage_. It wasn't that he cared for the Mythics—that would be disgusting. And even though he was intrigued by Violet and her strange lack of knowledge about herself, he didn't have any kind of emotional attachment to her.

He was angry that Amanda had been able to use their own powers against them. He saw the reasons that this team was drawn together. Their powers were alike in all of their dysfunction… Kim's was so flashy and intense, she was often mistook as a witch. Nyx's was a walking time bomb for anyone around her, Hades obviously had some thoroughly suck-ass powers that could kill you or make you wish for death, Violet couldn't seem to use hers, and Julia just went along with everyone because she didn't fit in the confines of anyone else's mold.

During the Splat game, team thirteen had been careful to control the worst of the powers, going out of their way to not lastingly damage the opposing team. Ignoring all of that, the winners made them do an unspeakable task. Amanda made them use the powers they wouldn't use on her on each other.

This pissed him off.

His soul couldn't even be taken by Mike and it made him angry. It made him angry that Violet didn't know how to use her tricks to protect herself, it made him angry that they willingly consented to this torture, sacrificing their very souls in an attempt to halt any impending violence. He had seen the way Amanda looked disappointed when she realized their team would do what she asked. He noticed Jacob's crestfallen expression, his fingers sizzling down to a harmless crackle.

They wanted action, he'd give them action. And he was going for Jacob this time… that phantasmagoric bastard.

* * *

Mike didn't care what Amanda would do to him. He had their souls for a half-hour. There was no telling what their minds could conjure for them in that amount of time. He had to bring them back. Now.

He lifted his hands, felt the cool whisper of life falling across his fingers, going back to their appropriate bodies. He was met with mind-numbing silence in return. Julia was crying.

"Is it over?" Violet whispered, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms wrapped tightly over her legs.

"Yes," Mike breathed, hardly willing to speak for the guilt that was crushing him.

"I'm alive?" Nyx squeaked, in question. Her eyes were stretched wide and unblinking, as if she were afraid to close them.

"Yes," Mike repeated, that ugly feeling of worthlessness settling upon him.

Kim blinked a few times, taking in her surroundings, then glared at the vents that cold frosty air leaked through. The hollow hum of the freezer stopped. "Oh, thank God." A relieved giggle escaped her throat. She gasped in shock and clapped her hand over her mouth, mortified.

Violet shook her head and laughed as well. There was nothing funny about this; they were all fragile, broken and not quite free of the nightmares they had created for themselves. It was either they laughed until their sides split or stay quiet and risk returning to their own personal hells, where death came as a kind of blessing.

"Why are you laughing," Alexander asked. He was the only one who hadn't gotten in the spirit. A scowl darkened his amethyst gaze, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the frosted metal wall. "There was nothing funny about that."

Nyx shook her head, but peels of mirth kept escaping her mouth. "You're right," she finally, managed by way of explanation. There was a kind of pride in what they just did. They felt proud and tall, like heroes, like the founders. All self-sacrifice for the greater good.

They waited a while until their laughter died down, settling back to the ground to get as comfortable as possible. It had warmed up now that Kim had stopped the freezer, and Nyx had hunted down a box of melting ice-cream sandwiches. No one minded in eating away their misery. Most of them had unusually fast metabolisms, and those who didn't, didn't care in the first place.

Mike suddenly dropped his third ice cream in shock, a panicked look in his eyes. "What's wrong?" Julia asked.

He paused, closing his eyes. He opened them and the panic had only intensified. "Someone is dying."

* * *

Kyle sighed, feeling miserable and sorry for himself. He didn't believe what Amanda had said about Violet, that she had almost killed her. He didn't know Violet extremely well, but then, he was on her Splat team for the last three years. He knew she would never hurt someone.

He didn't know why he had joined up with Amanda's team, other than the obvious fact that Amanda was gorgeous and… well, she was gorgeous.

He regretted it now, though. Now that he was thrown like a rag by a girl and had his eyebrows singed off by that bloody Apollo. He wondered where the flame-thrower had run off to. He had gone to the bathroom a half hour ago. He was probably sneaking off the grounds to the city while the rest of the team kept watch in front of the freezer. Lucky bastard.

"I'm bored," he stated to no one in particular.

"Don't care," Brian informed him through closed eyelids. He twisted around for a more comfortable position on the hard marble floor and tried once more for that nap.  
"I do," Kyle whined. "Why can't we just let them out? Its been a half hour already."

"No," Amanda snarled. "We don't let them out until I say so."

Kyle mumbled in complaint, rolling his eyes. He really wished he hadn't switched teams.

A couple minutes later there was a loud and urgent pounding from the inside of the freezer. "Let us out! Let us out!"

"Your punishment isn't over yet," Amanda sang.

"Get Epione! There's someone dying! Hurry!"

Kyle was up in an instant. He knew his team enough to recognize the urgency in their voices. "Where do you think you're going?" Amanda asked, and his feet froze to a halt.

"I'm getting Epione like they asked."

"I don't think so," she snarled, beckoning him with her finger back to him. "They stay in there. The devil himself couldn't get me to open the freezer."

"Don't be dumb," he muttered, turning around to break her gaze. "Someone's hurt."

Hannah, her steely nails grown to a sharp and lethal point, halted him with one of her talon-like hands around his arm. "You're on our team now. This is how our team works."

Kyle just rolled his eyes. Hannah was no longer holding his arm. She was holding liquid that slid right out of her fingers. He solidified by the freezer door and opened it before anyone could stop him.

Circe drifted past him, electricity trailing off her curly hair. Her eyes drifted over to the school speakers. "Paging Epione. Epione, come to the kitchens immediately. Epione."

"Where is he?" Violet asked Hades. They had changed while in the freezer, increasing their advantages. Mike's skin changed to a cool, frosty gray, and around him floated a weird, black mist.

"Bathroom," he said with the utmost surety.

They ran, ignoring Amanda en company's vacant gazes. They burst into the boy's bathroom unceremoniously. Violet began searching the stalls, and Hades drifted a little further back, the feel of death making him wary.

"Over here!" Julia yelled, beckoning the others to under the far sink.

Jacob lay in a crumbled mess on the tile floor, his skin sickly and gray. This was saying something, seeing as he was African American. His muscles were completely lax and useless, and when he cracked his eyes open the slightest bit, his pupils were dilated.

"What's wrong with him?" Julia asked, checking his pulse. It was slow, sluggish… barely existent.

"It's the same thing that happened to Amanda," Violet said. She put a hand in front of his mouth, trying to feel the vapor from his breath. "We need Epione."

"I'll take care of it," Circe muttered. The lights of the entire school flickered, and once again the speaker sounded. "Epione, to the boy's bathroom by the kitchen! NOW!"

"Claire," Violet said, suddenly, and idea dawning on her. She bolted out of the bathroom to find the earth child. "Claire, what was that flower that you made for Amanda this morning. We need it." Claire stared at her blankly, eyes darting between Violet and Amanda. "Honestly Claire for once in your life do something without the okay of that bitch and make the freaking flower. Jacob is _dying_."

Claire closed her eyes, and a mighty pronged vine coiled through the far window, crimson petals falling from its huge flowers. Violet grabbed one of the petals and ran back to bathroom, her sneakers skidding a little on the slick marble floor, Claire following behind her.

"Put the petal in his mouth," she gasped, throwing the flower to Julia.

Epione appeared crucial seconds later. "What's the problem?" she asked, breathing hard.

"Jacob!" everyone in the bathroom said at the same time.

She pushed up her sleeves and knelt by the slowly fading boy. It took a crucial, anxiety-filled fifteen minutes before the color resurfaced to his face. "What happened?" Epione asked him, when he finally opened his eyes.

Jacob passed a seething, fiery glare at Violet, lifting a shaking hand to point at her. "She did."

**well shit, she's got some back luck. lol**


	11. Chapter 11 Confessions and Costumes

**Hello everyone! I've had three really emotional, tension filled chapters in a row, so I've decided to mix it up a little and throw in a funny one. Its hard to beleive anything can be funny after the last chapter, but it is. Any little sisters who like to 'borrow' their older sister's stuff... you will find particular humor in a certain part of this. Or maybe not. Maybe my little sister is just a freak. Its entirely plausible. **

Chapter 11—Confessions and Costumes

Nyx raised her eyebrows, glancing between Jacob and Violet. "Well, shit," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders indifferently.

Kim chose this moment to be the voice of rationality, as usual. "Um, excuse me, I hate to be all pointedly obvious and everything, but it seems like you all need me to be. How would Violet do anything to Jacob if she was locked in the freezer with us, stuck inside a personal hell that you so kindly put her in. If you can explain how she was capable of being at two places at the same time when _she doesn't even have powers_, by all means. Share."

"Look," Jacob snarled. "I know it was her."

"Did you see her?" Kim asked, nastily.

"Well, no, but—"

"Then you don't really know it was her. Now get the hell up off the floor and leave Violet alone," she suggested. The rest of the team just stood back and let Kim chew Jacob out. Kim liked arguing, and with her instinctively rational mind, she was good at it. There was no reason for them to spoil her fun.

Jacob pushed himself to his feet, flame beginning to ignite around his fingertips. "Are you talking to me, _witch_?"

Kim raised an eyebrow. "Um… duh."

All of Amanda's team folded their arms over their chests, glaring down at the mismatched team thirteen. Julia looked at the hostile faces, dubiously, and made an exasperated sound. "Enough," she muttered, surprising everyone by displaying negative emotion. "Come on, guys. There's nothing left for us here."

She walked out of the bathroom and the rest of team thirteen followed in her wake. As Nyx left, she blew a malicious kiss to Jacob, then deliberately blinked.

The lights went out.

"Nyx!" came six voices of frustration. She gave a devious little giggle and exited the bathroom in wake of her friends.

Outside, Julia had changed into a polar bear to keep out the cold night. The rest of the team who actually felt the cold simply hurried to the dorms. "So, did you do it?" Mike asked Violet.

"Do what?" Violet asked through chattering teeth.

"Did you try to kill Jacob?" Mike pressed. "I mean, I get that that team is pretty much lower than dirt, but you're taking the whole revenge issue pretty far, don't you think?"

"I didn't do anything to him," Violet replied, honestly. "I was in the freezer with you, remember? You kind of stole my soul and sent it to a frozen prison."

Mike shook his head. "Look I covered for you in there because, in all honesty, that team deserves whatever they get. But at least tell us the truth. We're not really friends, but we are your teammates."

"What are you on about?" Kim asked, her breath freezing in a frosty mist in front of her. "She was in the freezer with us. There's no way she could have gotten to Jacob."

Mike turned to face them all, calling the quick progression to a halt. "Look, all I know is when I took your souls, I only had four. I'm not great in Tyler's class, but even I know that if I have five people, I should have gotten five souls."

"Well take my word for it, Mike. You took my soul. When you took my soul I was in a freezing cold wasteland, I fell into the ice and couldn't get back to the surface. I might have died, but I'm not really sure. All I know is you definitely took my soul, and call me a coward, but I'm not going to let you take it again to prove that you can." She noticed Mike's hurt expression, ridden with guilt, and instantly regretted her harsh words. "Look, I'm sorry, Mike. It's just, it was hell, you know. It kind of sucks having the person who put you there tell you it wasn't real. 'Cause it was."

"Then who is attacking the students?" Mike pressed.

Nyx rolled her eyes, but passed the briefest of glances to Alexander, who was jumping up and down in the cold night air. "Drop it, Mike. She didn't do anything."

"All I'm saying is—"

Nyx turned on him, grabbing his shirt front and yanking him forward. "All I'm saying is leave her alone. She didn't do anything."

Mike untangled himself from Nyx's grasp, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Freak."

Nyx lifted a fist, and Violet was sure she was going to punch him in the face. It wasn't so much being called a freak—it was a rather daily nickname for her, after all. It was more because she was being called a freak by the people she thought understood her. That they would think for even a moment that Violet would hurt anyone infuriated her. She would fight to the death for her friend, because she didn't have that many to begin with.

She dropped her fist, slowly. "You know what, I don't need this shit." She grabbed Violet's arm and pulled her forward in a run. Alexander, momentarily baffled, followed them. The friendship that Nyx and Violet had was incredible… and impossible. A Mythic and a Nosophorus, bonded as close as sisters… it just didn't happen. He needed answers.

"Nice meeting you," he told the remaining dumbstruck team, then bolted after the two retreating girls.

Violet collapsed on her bed in the girl's dorm a few minutes later, stuffing her head into her extra-fluffy pillow and screaming. She pounded her fists on the bed, kicked her legs violently, and continued to scream until her voice grew hoarse. When she looked up, red-eyed from tears, glasses askew on her face, Nyx was watching her.

Nyx wasn't one for sentimentality. She rarely cried and wasn't big on hugs. She didn't believe in forcing problems out in the open. When she was angry, she sought for distractions, something to drown her in enough adrenaline that she could forget. Tonight was no different. "Get up," she ordered.

"Why? It's almost curfew." All Violet wanted to do was cry herself to a dreamless sleep and then wake up to a full gallon of chocolate ice-cream.

"Yeah, and all the bitches of the world are about to come in. So, you can either stay in bed all night and endure their glares and remarks or you can get up off your ass." No sentimentality. None at all. But Violet knew better. This was Nyx's version of consoling a friend.

Violet pushed herself to her feet. "Alright, where are we going?"

Nyx hunted through her clothes chest, diving underneath her extra school uniform, the pajamas and her weekend jeans and t-shirts. All the way at the bottom were articles of clothing Violet had never seen Nyx wear before.

"Where'd you get this stuff?" Violet asked, incredulously, picking up a silver sequined halter top with absolutely no back.

"Okay, I'm about to tell you something that I've never told anyone in Haven before, and if you repeat it, I'm going to be forced to cut out your tongue."

"Okay?" Violet said, unsurely.

"My mom was a dancer," she breathed, closing her eyes as if revealing one of her deepest, darkest secrets.

Violet clapped her hands to her cheeks, making a mockingly shocked face. "Say it isn't so. Your mother was a dancer! What will we do?"

"Shut up!" Nyx hissed. "It's just, the moment someone learns my mom's a dancer, they want to know if I can dance."

Violet raised her eyebrows, dubiously, trying to envision her gothy best friend in a leotard and tights, doing an arabesque at a ballet studio. She couldn't. "Can you?" she asked.

A blush heated up Nyx's freckled cheeks. "The year before I came to Haven, I won first place in a national tap competition."

Violet's jaw dropped. "Why didn't you stick with it?" she asked. Violet would love to be good at something besides physics and calculus. She definitely couldn't dance for her life. When she tried, she usually ended up getting laughed at. Or breaking something.

Nyx shrugged. "I never really had the joy for it my mom had, and when I came to Haven, there were so many other things to learn, I just forgot about it."

"That doesn't explain all of this," Violet pointed out, gesturing to the many risqué outfits.

"Well, that's what I was getting at. I've collected a lot of costumes over the years, and over Christmas break I usually make another one or two just for shits and giggles. So, take your pick."

Violet shook her head. "I'm still not getting it. Where are we going that we need this?"

Nyx gave her signature savage smile. "We're going clubbing." She laughed at Violet's shocked expression. "Well, I was planning to go tomorrow night, anyway, but seeing as tonight it would probably unwise to stay in our dorms, I figured, why the hell not?"

Violet could think of many reasons to 'why the hell not', but never got the chance to voice them. Alexander walked in, his pale cheeks red from cold, his amethyst eyes squinted as usual. "What is going on?" He paused looking at the strewn costumes around the floor. "What are those?"

A sudden idea brightened Nyx's eyes. "We're going clubbing, and you're going with us."

"Okay, one, who says we're going clubbing," Violet argued, ignoring Nyx as she hunted through her costumes to find something that would fit her taller friend. "And two, even if we were going, what makes you think he's coming?"

"We promised him, remember?" she interjected, innocently. "Remember the bet, he won, so we're including him in our weekend. Well, it's the weekend, and these are our plans. Here," she handed Violet a fringey, sequiney article of clothing.

Violet dropped it as if it were poison. "Nyx! I can't wear that! It's a bra!"

Nyx rolled her eyes. "It's not a bra. It's a costume from _Chicago_."

"From what? _Cell Block Tango_?"

"How'd you know?"

"Nyx!"

"Stop being a baby," Nyx ordered. "It's the only thing I have that will fit you. Wear that pinstripe pantsuit with it."

Violet gave her a look. As far as she was concerned, she didn't exist before she turned thirteen and arrived at Haven. She had no memories of a past, her parents, a family. This meant she didn't get any outside funds for clothes. Any clothes she did have were purchased from her summer job wages, and usually bought second hand from thrift stores. She definitely didn't own a pinstripe pantsuit.

Nyx noticed her train of thought. "Amanda has one," she said, as if it was obvious.

A smile suddenly surfaced to Violet's face. "Oh." She thought about how great it would be to borrow (without permission) one of Amanda's expensive outfits, and end looking better in it that her. She liked the idea. "Why didn't you say so?" She grabbed the black sequined creation from the floor and began hunting through Amanda's trunk.

"Okay," Alexander said, slowly, now that the two had finally stopped squabbling long enough for him to speak. "Now, what's clubbing?"

The two girls met him with a blank stare. Violet had her shirt half off, her glasses at a strange angle on her face. "Were you raised in a cave?" Nyx asked, incredulously, seeing as Violet was unable to form words.

"No," Alexander said, affronted. He came from a pretty well-off family, after-all. "But I'm not from around here."

Violet shook her head, making it known that she thought this was no excuse. "There's music, dancing and usually booze," she said by way of explanation. "Nyx, didn't Hannah have a pair of red stilettos from the formal last year."

"Check under the bed," she suggested. "Alexander, come here. I need you to lace up the back." She was donning a black and red corset over a sheer black top that was impossible to put on without assistance. Alexander began threading the black laces through the grummets, unsurely.

"So, what am I supposed to wear?" he asked. If they got anywhere near him with a corset, he was out of there.

Violet walked toward him, completely dressed and accessorized, and Alexander did a double-take. For the short time he had known her, he had seen her in nothing but the school uniform and on occasion, a ragtag pair of jeans and t-shirt. Her hair was always piled up in a messy bun, with perhaps a pen sticking out of the mass, and her face always covered by the glasses.

She was not that person, now. She was not the smart math-brain or the nice girl blamed for everyone else's problems. She was… different. The black suit was sleek, but still cut to accentuate all the right angles, giving it a sexy edge. Of course, it helped a bit that the open jacket revealed the sparkly black top with fringe hanging down across her well-defined abdomen. Her platinum blond hair was worn down, parted so that it all fell to one side.

"Where are your glasses?" he asked, when he finally found his tongue.

"Contacts," she explained, with a shrug.

"Are you wearing face color?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean makeup. Yeah, I used Claire's. Nyx, how long before curfew?"

"Ten minutes," the gothy girl said, carefully arranging the multitude of colors in her hair to the right angle. She jumped up, finally completed. Again, Alexander found himself staring. She was not as hard-lined as her friend, but then, Alexander had grown up with everyone being tall and skinny. The change was rather refreshing.

Nyx's corset accented her hour-glass figure nicely, and the short black pixie skirt caught him by surprise. She had great legs. The fishnets and happy little combat boots just made them look longer. Her dark brown eyes were shaded with black kohl, and her hair arranged perfectly so that it was no longer a random mess of color. There was a chunk of blue on the right of her face, a chunk of purple on the left, and stretching back to the remaining black under layers was neon pink. She gave Alexander a wink, and he blushed, realizing he had been caught ogling. "I think we can find something for you in ten minutes, don't you?"

Violet flashed a smile. "Definitely. You're going to be our pimp."

All Alexander could do was let himself be led forward by the two, over to the boys' dorm. "What's a pimp?" he asked, finally.


	12. Chapter 12 Shattered Mirror

**WARNING! TABOO SCENE ENCLOSED! PLEASE READ AUTHOR NOTE AT END AFTER YOU FINISH THE CHAPTER! **

Chapter 12—Shattered Mirror

"Shh!" Nyx hissed as they trotted through the moonlit courtyard, Violet's heels clicking on the broken slab-stone path.

"Sorry," she muttered, running her hands up and down her arms briskly, to keep in her limited body heat. She made a mental note for the future. If ever trying to sneak out of the school after curfew, she mustn't wear three-inch stilettos.

"I'm freezing," Alexander complained, softly. They had dressed him in a shockingly white pair of pants and jacket, off-set with a black collared shirt with the top button undone. He had originally thought that the white would look terrible against his already fair skin and platinum hair, but the girls seemed to know what they were doing. The effect of the new clothes made him look more distinctly ethereal, un-human. And un-Mythic. "How far away is the club?"

Nyx and Alexander shared a look. The town was just off the grounds of the school, but the grounds of the school were pretty expansive. When they got out of the courtyard, there were the parks and playing fields that would become vastly more popular once the January cold seeped away, and then a couple miles of secluded woodland. It was all barred by extensive protective illusions and spells from Raven and John. Oh, and an automated gate designed by Tyler and Isabel. They were a dangerous pair.

"Not far," Nyx lied, easily. Violet rolled her eyes. It was so easy to believe Nyx. She was, after all, a pathological liar.

It was an easy thing for her to lie about, too. She didn't feel the cold.

"Let's just hurry," Violet suggested, pulling the scarlet red shoes off her feet and sticking them into her deep coat pockets. This took away most of the noise of her footsteps, but left only her bare feet on the frozen ground. At least there was no ice.

The broke into a run as quietly as they could. Nyx changed into her second shape, which had the ability of moving slightly faster because she was lighter. Alexander used his tricks to make him hover, running forward at greater speed. Violet struggled to keep up, and Alexander, remembering that she didn't know how to use her skills yet, latched onto her wrist and shared his powers with her.

She paused a moment, confusion passing her eyes a moment that quickly turned into joyous and grateful elation. "Cool," she murmured, looking at her feet that hovered a few inches above the grass.

"Tell me about it," Alexander complained, thinking she was speaking about the frosty night air, and pulled her forward.

With the combined efforts of their powers, they were able to get out of the courtyard and passed the playing fields without any major catastrophe. They paused briefly, as the amount of trees steadily increased.

"Why'd we stop?" Alexander shivered.

Nyx looked doubtfully at the close trees. She could see well in the soft moonlight. Though she saw nothing out of the ordinary now, she knew it would change the moment she crossed the invisible threshold created by John. "Whatever happens in the forest, no matter what you see or hear, keep going. If we split up, meet in front of the gate."

"How do we get past the gate?" Alexander asked.

Violet gulped, the adrenaline of sneaking out to numb all the problems ebbing away enough for her to appreciate the fact that they really were sneaking out, and they would really get in trouble if they were caught.

"Nyx? Violet?" Alexander prodded, confused by their lack of response. And then it dawned on him. "This is the first time you've snuck out?"

"Nyx thinks that her gift of chaos will screw up the technology on the gate, so there shouldn't be any problems," Violet assured him, ignoring his statement.

"U-huh," he whispered, dubiously. "And how reliable have we calculated your chaos to be in the past?"

"It got us an A in arts and theatre," Nyx pointed out.

"On a complete spam!" Alexander shouted, and Nyx and Violet hissed him quiet again. "Look maybe this isn't such a great idea after all. We can still go back and not be noticed."

"Don't be a baby," the shadow-Nyx snapped. "Come on."

They slowed down as they started through the forest, senses on hyper-alert for anything out of the ordinary. It did not take long for it to happen.

"Well, well, well," came a soft, slightly sarcastic voice. Alexander felt a certain, familiar sinking in the pit of his stomach, matched only by a couple hours ago, in math class. "Sneaking out, are we?"

Violet bowed her head, a blush heating her cheeks. "We were just going for a walk, Tyler."

"Past curfew, in the cold?" he challenged.

"What can we say… couldn't sleep," Violet said, hoping that he bought the transparent lie.

Tyler glared with a look that made them want to run and hide. "When I say 'you're in trouble', you really have no idea the extent of the phrase," he said, the dangerous teacher voice coming out.

Nyx and Alexander shrunk under his gaze, but a rather unusual thought popped into Violet's head. "Your hands are in gloves," she said, slowly.

"Get back to your dorms," he continued, ignoring her statement. "We will discuss this later."

Violet smiled, suddenly. "I don't think we will." Without another word, she pulled Alexander forward, and Nyx, gaping at her sudden gall, could do nothing but follow.

"What was that about?" she breathed, shocked.

"It wasn't Tyler. It was an illusion."

They continued on this trek for quite some time, being stopped by random illusions that were intended to halt their path. The problem with a lot of them was that even if they weren't real, all of their senses told them it was real. So, if the path was blocked by a large grove of thorn bushes, they had no other choice than to plow through it, getting as many scratches and scrapes as if it were real.

They almost stopped and turned around when they heard the song on the speakers. Apparently, by walking they had triggered some sort of device that caused a recording of Siren's voice to start. It was a last resort… how could anyone be stupid enough to plow straight through briars, after all. It demanded, softly, imploringly, that they turn back and return to their dorms. They had to safely cover their ears for a portion of the walk, until they were sure their will would not be affected by Siren's strange song.

The last and final obstacle posed itself as the fence. Violet remembered appearing at the fence several years ago. It was the first memory she had, looking up at the tall marble creation and thinking it was somehow _alive_.

She knew better, now, of course. The fence was not alive. It was just a piece of Medusa's marble, wrought with hundreds of thousands of encryptions and codes created by her and Tyler. The marble learned the codes because it was created by her, and she had a knack with computers herself.

Nyx took a deep breath, and started to walk forward, her hand outstretched to touch the cold white surface. "Wait!" Violet cried, suddenly. Nyx turned, and though there was no real definition in her face when she was in her Mythic form, Violet imagined that her lips were pursed in annoyance. "If you break the gate, can you fix it again?"

Nyx shrugged. "Probably not. Why?"

Violet bit her lip. "Well, we'll be able to get back in, but then, so could anyone else."

"Who would come into Haven?" Nyx said. Violet raised her eyebrows. "Okay, so lots of people, but no one knows the school for what it really is. The locals just think it's a boarding school, remember?"

"Yeah," Violet agreed, slowly. "I just have a bad feeling."

Nyx shrugged, lightly, but couldn't help but agree. "Let's leave the bad feelings to the psychics, alright?"

Violet was not convinced. "John would want us to stay."

Nyx turned on her, reclaiming her human form so her best friend could see the hurt and anger in her eyes. "Where was John a couple of hours ago, huh? Where was he when we actually had to fight for our lives during a stupid game of Splat? Did he stop Amanda from making Mike use his powers against us? Was he there when you were accused of trying to kill someone?"

Violet looked away. "He saved my life, Nyx. He let me into Haven."

"The founders aren't God, Violet!" she cried, frustrated by Violet's undying loyalty. "They don't solve all of our problems and they can't protect us from everything."

"You've heard what happens to Mythics outside of the school," Amanda protested, softly, giving her a meaningful look. "You've heard what the founders went through to make this place for us. They protect us more than you give them credit for."

"You tell yourself that next time Amanda makes Mike put you in hell," Nyx snarled.

Alexander chose this moment to cut in. He had gotten fairly used to the girls' squabbling, but this was very very different. Nyx looked ready to hit her best friend. "If we go back to the dorms tonight, who knows what Amanda will do to us. Right now, we're safer outside Haven, and if we turn back it'll have been a long walk in the cold in the middle of the night for absolutely nothing."

Nyx raised her eyebrows pointedly at Violet, as if to say 'told you so.' She turned back to the marble gate and placed her tingling hand against the cold surface.

Then pushed open the yielding gate.

"Coming or staying?" she asked, a little less anger in her voice. A little.

Violet gripped Alexander's hand so his hovering skill could pass over to her again, and crossed the threshold, back into the real-world.

* * *

Back at the school, Mike dragged himself miserably up to the boys' dorm. He paused a moment, his dark eyes passing briefly over each of his fellow roommates. He could feel death in each of them, in some stronger than others. It made sense in a way. Though they shared the traits of mythological and extraordinary creatures, they were still, in a manner of speaking, quite human. Humanity, existence, depended on balance. There was life in each of his roommates… it was the part of themselves they displayed to the world. It was the part that laughed and cried and got worried for tests and fell in love with the curly haired shape-changer in the girl's dorm.

There was also death in all of them, lingering in their very body. They didn't know it was there. They wouldn't feel it until it became stronger than life.

At times like this, times where he was miserable and ridden with guilt that he could barely feel the life in anyone. He was surrounded by the death embedded in each living person.

"Hey, loser," Kyle called out, beckoning him forward. Mike shuffled the rest of the way into the room, awkwardly. "Look, I'm really sorry about what Amanda did. I didn't know she was going to get all… and I wouldn't have changed teams if I knew she was so psycho."

Mike looked at him, really looked at him for the first time, but all he could see was the way death seemed to linger on him. "Yeah, it's fine, I guess," he muttered, unsurely.

"You're sure?" Kyle pressed.

Mike resisted the urge to glare. Kyle had it easy. Sure his powers weren't amazing—he could turn into water, big whoop—but at least he had no complicated sixth sense issues. "Do you know what happens when I steal someone's soul?" he asked, ignoring his original question. Kyle shook his head, confusion clouding his eyes. "When I take someone's soul, I send them into their own personal hell. They're worst nightmare… they live it. They could die just from fear.

"Every time I take someone's soul, I feel a little bit of my own taken away with it. I don't know where it goes because my worst nightmare is this, being forced to hurt people I care for, torture people I love." He thought briefly of Julia, and how the light had never quite returned to her eyes after he had returned her. He remembered her telling him how she was always afraid she'd be stuck in one of the animals she shifted into. He shuddered. "Every time I steal someone's soul, my connection with death is stronger. I can feel it on you now and its making me sick. It makes me wonder, what happens when I steal too many? What happens when all of my own soul is gone? If I die, what happens to everyone else? Can they still die?

"You want to know if everything's alright between us. Well, it's not. You sold us out. You're a coward, a traitor."

He turned and walked out, trying to calm himself down but failing miserably at it. He headed for one of the private bathrooms, thinking maybe a good cold shower would shock the death from his system.

He stared at himself for a moment, in the mirror, his pale hands pressed against the Italian marble sink. Mirrors always showed Mythics for what they really were. A Mythic could never be sure what they looked like at any specific moment, for all they saw when they looked at their reflection was their second shape.

Mike saw someone intense and frightening. The person in the mirror surpasses the pale skin he could see stretched over his own body. The person in the mirror had skin so pale, it was almost translucent, grayish. His eyes were shadowed and dark, darker than his, and wispy tendrils of shadow curled around his presence.

Creepy.

He was angry at himself, angry beyond all words. He had hurt his friends. He had accused Violet of hurting someone else. He felt as if his arm was missing from the recent chunk taken out of his being. He had only ever taken two souls before this time… both were accidental and he had only taken them for seconds.

He had stolen four souls at a time for a half an hour. He expected to feel pain after he brought them back… it hurt, after all, to have one's soul ripped from their physical state. He had felt nothing, though. He wondered if that was what would happen when he ran out of spirit, when he had beaten it to beyond repair. He wouldn't feel anything anymore. No pain and suffering, but no joy or euphoria either.

His long, pale hands clenched into fists, his nails biting into the palms of his hand. He stared at his white knuckled grip, waiting to feel something. He knew he should. The tendons in his wrist were taunt and the tips of his fingers devoid of color. There was nothing though. When he unclenched his fist, he could see the purple crescent bruises on his palm, but could not feel it.

Panic started to bubble into his throat. What if it was too late? What if he only had enough in him to steal six souls? Had he reached his limit, now, before he had gotten the chance to fully live?

Furtively, he blocked the sink and turned the faucet on to burning hot, watching as the steaming liquid filled up the basin. He could not feel the angry rush of water as it fell over his fingers.

Something! There had to be something! He looked at his reflection once more, seeing his panicked gaze and flushed cheeks as if they belonged to someone else. He was not that creature in the mirror. The bringer of death and pain. He could not be that. That traitor.

He punched the glass.

Across his knuckles exploded sweet, fiery agony. He gasped in shock, the blood from his hands dripping into the steaming water, making floating, spirally red patterns through the liquid. He could feel it. He loved it so much because it reminded him he was alive. He was really there. He was not all gone.

The pain numbed away quickly, though. Desperate, delirious, barely even thinking beyond the fear that he might disappear among the death he could feel in everything, he picked up a shard of the broken mirror.

When he angled it toward himself, he could see the floating wisps of shadow. They curled madly around his arms, his legs, his torso. Viciously, he swiped at the invisible black mist. He knew he hit it when bright red blood spurt forth. Yes! The shadows were dying. If the shadows died, then Hades would die. Mike could be whole again.

They were on his arms. When he turned his palm, angling the stained mirror to see properly, he saw hundreds of shadows mixing with the bright blue veins on his translucent wrist.

He cut. He felt dizzy. He sat down. The shadows were dead. They had to be. There was red. It was everywhere. His shadows were red, now.

Distantly, he was aware of his body losing strength. He collapsed against the slick tile floor. The red shadows were on the floor too. He was pretty sure he was resting his head in a big one.

Sleepy. So sleepy. He could close his eyes, now. He felt it safer now. Nothing would creep up on him. Nothing would be taken from him. He wouldn't hurt anyone.

Pounding. The door. It was pounding. It crashed down. A grizzly bear?

No, a girl. Curly hair, warm brown eyes. Screaming. The girl was screaming. A name. Weird name. Really weird name.

"EPIONE!"

**Alright, here's the deal. I know this is a very sensitive topic for a lot of teenagers. Massochism and suicide are in every highschool, whether we care to see it or not. I'm not saying its right, but from the feedback Ive heard from reviews, I understand you all to be mature and reasonable people. I think you can read this and not feel isulted or suicidal. If you think I'm promoting or suggesting at teen suicides, you are very mistaken. This is just how the story went. Remeber, this story is FICTION. In real life, there's no magic healer to fix you. **

**If you do have some kind of problem, I encourage you to talk to someone about it. You're never as alone as you think. **

**Okay, my little preach is over. Its a sensitive topic for me as well, I guess. **


	13. Chapter 13 The Club

**Hello everyone! I'm back from my three days at the beach and my one day at college orientation, and I am TAN. Of course, I'm kinda tan all year round due to my heritage... but now I'm REALLY tan. My face is also peeling, which isn't quite as cool. **

**So I would like to point out that I typed this chapter up on my laptop, which just came in yesterday and is bootiful. There are these great perks that come with going to college. Laptop. Money.More money. **

**And then I realize I'm going to college and will be forced to spend all my money. Darn. **

Chapter 12—The Club

It had been surprisingly easy to sneak into the club. There were perks to having certain paranormal abilities. Like Nyx and her recent discovery of being able to walk through walls in her second form. By holding Violet's and Alexander's hands, she was able to share the power with them. She wasn't sure how that was possible. No other Mythic could do that.

Violet explained it to her, using some physics law that made absolutely no sense. It had something to do with her being a net external force… or something?

Anyway, they had gotten into the club without any further turmoil. Checking their coats by the door, they weaved their way through the turmoil of pulsing music and lively dancers.

"Wanna dance, Alexander?" Nyx asked, her voice rose to be heard over the blaring bass of the speakers.

Alexander looked at her, dubiously. When she had said there was music and dancing at the club, he had imagined it as one of the privileged meetings of the Elders, which were full of glittering jewels and soft, composed dancing. This was the dancing he had done with his friends back home, right after they had all leeched their fill of the humans and were wild and raw with energy and emotion. He wondered if Nyx could keep up with him.

"Don't worry, beautiful," she said with a wink, sensing his hesitation but interpreting it for a different reason. "I'll show you all the right moves."

Needing no more invitation, he joined Nyx on the dance floor, allowing the surrounding crowd to push them closer, deeper into the throng of people. Controlled only by the music, the bass so freakishly loud and deep, he could actually feel it stammering against his chest.

The song changed, and with it came a new, intense lighting system that flashed around the crowd and turning everyone distinct shades of red, blue and yellow. Nyx was mesmerizing in the different colors, her affinity with chaos glowing from her very skin as she closed her eyes and let the music carry her.

Like this, lost in movement, her sixth sense for the unpredictable tingling her skin so sharply it crawled all the way up her arms and down her shoulders, she felt at home. Among the people, the music and Alexander, it was complete chaos and she drank it up.

As she watched Alexander move with all the aptitude of one completely comfortable with the odd angles of his own body, she tried to remember what she was doing. She hadn't asked Alexander to dance for no reason. No, this was business, she reminded herself. Alexander still had a secret and Nyx was beginning to sense that the longer he kept it from them, the more danger they were in.

As Alexander pulled her forward, their feet pounding out a synchronized rhythm, their movements completely complimenting the others, the reason, the business, the danger completely flitted away. As she moved, strong and sure with every gesture, she reveled in that weird anesthetic that dance gave her. The pain that had been eating away at her, the betrayal of the founders not stopping the Splat game before it became a game for their lives, the shock of not even John being able to come to their rescue when they needed him most, the undying fear from living inside her hell for the most terrible half hour of her life… it didn't disappear. But it was numb. At least she couldn't feel it anymore.

As she slung her arms around Alexander's neck, her hips moving in a sultry mix between salsa and east-coast hip hop, only one thought trickled through her foggy mind.

_To hell with the plan_.

* * *

Violet crossed her arms over her chest for a moment, debating. She bit her lip as she watched Nyx and Alexander, completely and entirely tuned with each other. She felt a sorry feeling of regret settle into her chest. Alexander had been the third wheel for the last couple days. When did it happen that the station of third-wheel shifted to her? 

She knew she should join the crowd and dance. That was the reason they were here, after all. To dance and forget.

Problem. She couldn't dance. At all.

Amazing how that fact seemed to escape her during the moments of their preparation to come. She cursed in her brain, then squinted against the psychotic lights to try and find somewhere to sit. Who knew? Maybe she'd luck out and there would be a dark, handsome stranger who wanted to talk with the albino giraffe in red stilettos.

She maneuvered her way around the crowd and trotted up the spiral stairs. There was a bar and seating up here, plus an aerial view of her best friend and the new kid totally getting it on on the dance floor. Traitor.

She sighed and walked over to the bar, pulling herself up a stool and resting her elbows on the slick black counter. "What you drinking?" the bartender asked her, giving her a fleeting once-over.

"Coke and rum, on the rocks with a lemon twist," she said, immediately. She had never had any alcohol before, but had heard that particular concoction on a movie once. It seemed her best bet, or else she was going to make it obvious that she was underage.

Wordlessly, he stirred together the beverage and placed it on a little napkin in front of her. She gave him a few dollars for it and took a sip of the liquid.

She made a face. It wasn't bad, per say, but it had a lot more rum than it did coke. The tang went all the way up her nose. She tried not to shudder as she walked with her cup over to the balcony, her elbows resting on the guardrails.

"Come here often?" a friendly male voice asked. Violet turned around in surprise, shocked that anyone of the opposite sex was speaking to her, least of all this particular member. She added him up, quickly. Tall, dark, handsome…

She didn't believe it.

"Uh… no, first time, actually."

He smiled at her, walking up to stand in a similar position as she, leaning against the protective bar on the balcony. His shoulder nudged hers a bit. "I thought so." He continued at her questioning gaze. "I think I would have remembered such a pretty face."

Violet hoped that he excused the sudden flush in her cheeks as compliment of the lighting. She took another sip of her drink, more for something to do than anything else.

"You live around here?" he asked, oblivious to her discomfort.

She nodded, warily. "Yeah."

"Whereabouts?" he continued, unaffected by her mistrusting gaze.

"I go to the private school up the ways. Hav—I mean, the D. Connor Institute," she corrected, realizing he probably wouldn't know the school's nickname.

He laughed at that. "Well that explains it," he said, turning around so his back leaned on the railing. He was dressed all in black, but it wasn't like Nyx's gothy-black. This was chic-Mediterranean-god black.

"Explains what?" she asked, with a frown.

"Why you seem so delectably timid," he explained, flashing her a smile that revealed how very white his teeth seemed against his tanned skin. "First time sneaking out, as well?"

Violet wished her skin wasn't so damned pale, so that when she blushed, it wouldn't be quite as obvious. "Something like that," she admitted.

He caught her hand, pulling her forward to sit at one of the squashy ultra-retro booths. Violet took another sip of coke and rum, welcoming the bitter tang that ran up her nose as it reacquainted herself with her senses. "So what happened? School-girl life to mundane for a wild one like you?" He passed her a gaze from under his black lashes that she thought might be able to smolder paper.

The smoldering gaze wasn't enough for the absurdity of his statement to miss her. She let out a sudden, raucous laugh. "Kind of the opposite," she said, suppressing the remainder of the obnoxious laughs.

He raised his eyebrows, as if interested. His arm slithered around the back of the chair, just above her head, and he leaned forward, as if expecting her to continue. She took a gulp of coke and rum. "Care to elaborate?" he asked.

"You wouldn't follow," she said, surely.

"Try me," he insisted.

"No," she continued, sweetly.

His lower lip stuck out, in possibly the most scintillating pout she had ever seen. "Please?" His fingers casually fiddled with the platinum strands of hair pushed to one side.

How could she resist that face? "Basically, the whole school knows I'm not… er… smart enough to be there. A game of… football went horribly awry, and since I was on the losing team the winners made us go through…well, hell." There was the added fact of everyone thinking she was a psychotic serial killer, but she couldn't figure out how to voice that in a double innuendo.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "You play football? But you're so…" he searched for the right word.

"Skinny, gangly, awkward, graceless…" she suggested, innocently.

He shook his head, leaning forward, his lips moving against hers as he spoke. "Feminine."

That was a new one.

* * *

Alexander untangled himself from Nyx, motioning to the upstairs as the music was too loud to speak. He needed a drink. She nodded, understanding, already moving toward another dance partner. This irked him. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward, up the spiral stairs. 

Nyx didn't seem to mind at all. Her eyes were deliriously happy as she clambered up the steps, wiping the sheen of sweat from her forehead. "Where'd you learn to dance like that?" she asked him, breathlessly. "I thought you said you'd never been to a club."

"We don't call them clubs where I'm from," he explained, wrapping an arm around her waist as they leaned by the bar, waiting for the bartender to come close enough to hear.

"Where did you move from, anyway?" she asked, looking up at him.

He was saved the pain of forming a reply when the bartender noticed them. "What do you want?"

"Er…" Alexander stammered, unsure of what they would be drinking here.

"A long island iced tea and a strawberry daiquiri," Nyx said, saving him. She pulled a twenty from the top of her corset, hidden by the swell of cleavage.

Alexander raised his eyebrows. "Convenient?" he asked.

"No pockets," she explained as if it was obvious and he was dumb. They paid for their drinks and walked to one of the tables. Alexander took a deep swig of his—he had iced tea at home, it was safe—then almost gagged as a near-toxic blend of sweet and bitter assaulted his taste buds.

"Want to trade?" Nyx asked, biting her lips to suppress a smile.

"Sure." He swapped their glasses, and was about to take a sip of the sweet smelling red liquid when Nyx stopped him.

"I should warn you, though. Daiquiris are a chick's drink."

Alexander sighed, heavily and traded the glasses again, so he was back with the iced-tea that had all but incapacitated him He took a tentative sip, again. It wasn't so bad, now that he wasn't drinking it expecting iced-tea. He decided he liked it.

"So," Nyx said, sighing happily, a playful smile lit up on her face.

"So," Alexander repeated, unsure of what to say.

"Do you like it here?" she asked.

Alexander nodded, furtively. "Oh yeah, this place is great. It was definitely worth the walk in the cold."

"I'm glad," Nyx said, sliding her chair over to be closer to him. Maybe he was just imagining it, but Nyx was giving him a rather sultry look. Her closeness sent electrical shocks into his arms. Ouch.

"Why haven't you ever sneaked out before, if it's this fun?" Alexander asked, trying to ignore the fact that under the esteemed influence of alcohol, he wasn't nearly as disgusted of Nyx as he should be.

"There was never any reason to," she admitted. "We always felt safe at Haven. There was no reason to leave."

Alexander looked at her for a moment, suddenly seeing a very scared girl beneath the layers of scariness and sarcasm. "It really hurt you, didn't it?"

Nyx gave him a surprised look, outrage beginning to edge into her eyes as she was accused of vulnerability. "What do you mean?"

"Learning that Haven isn't as safe as you thought it was, learning that you can't be protected… it hurt." It was not a question.

It was obvious Nyx didn't like to talk about her own feelings, so when she spoke, it was short and curt. "I'll survive."

"Of course you will." He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. Dang that burned.

Nyx smiled, as if something wonderful was beginning to occur to her. Alexander found himself more than a little leery of that smile. "Come on, Alexander. Let's dance again."

She grabbed his hands and pulled him up, and they proceeded once more to the dance floor.

There was something different in the way she danced this time, though. Alexander recognized the subtle change in her movements, the fleeting moments her eyes no longer met his… She wasn't lost in the music this time. She was waiting for him to drown in it, while she stayed safely above.

As he felt that weird, intoxicating fog that came with being drunk, he decided he didn't much care. Even when Nyx wasn't giving the dancing her all, each movement was so intense and filled with such a deep-set strength, he even forgot that he was a Nosophorus and she a Mythic, and as such he should hate her.

As the tempo increased, the volume blared, his heart pounded, he couldn't help but wonder. Who cared anyway? Maybe it was just the non-iced-tea talking, but he couldn't think of any good reason that he was supposed to hate Nyx. He could see many reasons not to hate her though… one very particular one being the impishly entrancing way her multi-colored hair fell into her eyes as she moved.

She laced his hands around her neck, and the tingly electricity from her chaos shivered all the way down his spine. He shuddered. "Sorry," she muttered, so soft, he wasn't sure if she had even bothered to speak aloud. The music was so loud.

"Follow me," he mouthed, taking her buzzing hand in his and pulling her forward, wondering if she felt some of the same electricity he felt from her that had nothing to do with her paranormal gifts.

He realized he was about to find out as he succumbed purely to instinct, abandoning all logical thought as he turned suddenly, pulling Nyx toward him roughly and capturing those adorably pursed lips with his own.

Maybe she did feel the same thing. It certainly seemed like it, as she molded herself closer to him, her lips buzzing against his.

She pulled away—did he notice reluctance?—and rested her forehead against his chest. She was so small. All the girls were he was from were almost the same height as him, staggeringly tall as he was. Nyx seemed to fit in his arms better. Incredible. Impossible.

She looked up at him, standing on her tip-toes to whisper something in his ear. He strained to hear her, her voice barely audible, almost frightened, even when she was so close. "What's your secret?"

Alexander wasn't sure what possessed him to do it, what brain function short circuited—personally he blamed the iced tea—but the words came tumbling out of his mouth on their own accord. "I'm a Nosophorus."

Nyx was pretty sure that this wasn't a kind of dinosaur.

* * *

Tall-dark-and-handsome was kissing her. Violet repeated it in her head, just to make sure it still checked out with the reality of the situation. Here was Tall-dark-and-handsome, pulling her closer to him, and his lips were… well, they were currently trailing across her neck, but it completely counted. 

Violet forced herself to be honest again. This was the first time she had ever been seriously kissed. Did it bother her that it was with someone she didn't even know the name of? Not so much.

That was definitely the rum talking.

When she thought about it seriously, her hands trailing in his long dark locks as he nibbled her ear, it was quite possible that she had been kissed before. It just had to be before she came to Haven. In the thirteen years before her life at Haven, anything could have happened. How could she know? It had been years and she still couldn't remember.

So, when Tall-dark-and-handsome's lips met hers, it took her a moment to get the technique right. Where exactly was her nose supposed to go? She never had known it to be so awkward before. And what about breathing? She felt her lungs aching for air the moment she thought this. Damn it.

She pulled away, but he tightened his grip on her shoulders. Violet frowned as his fingers dug into her skin, through the expensive fabric of her borrowed jacket. "Let go," she said, slowly, meeting him with an angry glare she didn't know she possessed.

A dark, scary smile spread across his face. "No."

She felt her heart lurch into her throat. Amazing, with all the unusual and unrealistic that endangered her everyday life, that made her instinctively cautious, she was in this sticky, oh so human situation. Overpowered by a man she had allowed to get too close. If she didn't act soon, she was about to become an unfortunate statistic on the bottom of a rape victim webpage.

She yanked her arms away from him, trying to find her feet again. "I said, let go!" she hissed. It was too cramped in this little booth, and her long legs refused to find room enough to stand and run.

"Sorry, babe."

Fear was becoming something all too familiar to her. As the rushing, choking emotion bubbled through her stomach and erupted through her veins, she cursed herself as an idiot and a fool. She was a skinny, little twig of a girl… had about zero muscle power to back up any threats she might come up with, and though her best friend would probably be able to curse him with a lifetime of bad luck and chaos, that very same best friend had conveniently disappeared with Alexander. Life was just full of these great surprises, wasn't it?

Panic bubbled and exploded in her as he forced her backwards, suppressing her cries of help by knocking the wind out of her with his shoulder. She winced, hands flailing to keep him away, be he caught her wrists, pulling them back hard enough that she could already feel bruises.

Uselessly, her brain returned to one of the mandatory campus assemblies at Haven. They had all been forced to pretend for that day that they were just normal, if not a little weird-looking, humans, as a representative from the rape victim center came to speak with them. The woman had told them things that she had simply blown off. That kind of stuff didn't happen to people like her. The woman had also said no one ever thinks it will happen to them.

A lot of times, young girls would simply misinterpret a man's intentions. Well, she fell in that category. Often, it turned out that a woman would change her mind. She was pretty close to that extent as well. After the woman left, Isabel had taken the microphone and reminded them that they had the gift of extra, non-human abilities. While it was strictly forbidden to use their powers outside of school, Isabel also made a point of telling them that they should fight with everything they had… including revealing themselves as Mythics if they must.

Violet wrinkled her face in dread, turning her face away from Him, the devil incarnate. She would love to use her powers against him.

Problem. She had no powers.

Which, to state it plainly, sucked more than ever.

After that assembly at Haven, both she and Nyx had decided they would rather die than be raped. It hadn't occurred to them that if that unfortunate situation did occur, the means might not even be there to die. Her eyes blurred with tears as she thought about it. There was really no escape.

He tore the jacket. Oops… so that was why she didn't borrow clothes. He sat up a moment, fiddling hurriedly, savagely with his belt. It was the only distraction Violet required. She turned around quickly, mule kicking him so hard, she was very certain he no longer had _those_ thoughts anymore. Mindlessly panicked, she scrambled away.

Refusing to be undermined, he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her toward him again. He snarled a curse at her, a pocketknife in his hand that was traveling in an upward arc to her ribs.

She closed her eyes, panic gripping her more than words could state. _Stop!_ She screamed in her mind. _It's too much. Stop! Stop! Stop! _

And it did.

**Okay, so I know I promised some people a funny chapter after the last one... but it didn't quite work out like that. Sorry. There are funny moments... like violet thinking aboiut nyx and alexander getting it on... okay, so not really. My bad. **


	14. Chapter 14 Still Time

**Another one of my infamous twenty-four hour updates. My wrists don't thank me, but I'm sure everyone else appreciates it. I'm starting work on monday so if my updates are a little more slow... know its because I don't have time, not because I'm giving up the story. My goal is to have this finished by the end of the summer, though. **

**As always, reviews are infinitley appreciated, suggestions are welcomed, and flames endured. If you notice any stark, glaring typos (like in chapter twelve, i beleive it was, where i wrote "Amanda said" when it was supposed to be "Violet said" seeing as Amanda wasn't even there), feel free to point them out. **

**This chapter is a little break from all the action... if any of the people reading this are particularly good at abstract physics, and you can come up with a better reason than me that time should stop... i'm welcome to ideas. **

Chapter 14—Still Time

Violet cracked on eye open warily, confused by the sudden lack of pain. She started when she found herself face to face with the Devil Incarnate, his face screwed up into one of total, consuming rage, the point of the knife barely an inch away from her third rib.

She pushed herself away, hurriedly, still numb with panic and fear. She wondered why he hadn't come after her yet.

That's when the sudden, piercing silence struck her. The thrum of music was gone, the pounding bass rattling through her chest had disappeared. It was the strangest sound she had ever heard… one of absolutely nothing. Even in the most quiet of silences in school, there was still some kind of noise. Floor board squeaking, wind rushing, someone speaking in the next room…

This silence was absolute, consuming. There was no one else moving.

Damn.

She took in her appearance, carefully, recalling John's vision. Black eye that was still sore from this morning… well, she guessed it was yesterday by now. Her clothes torn and mussed (Amanda would have her throat for that), and if she cared to look in a mirror (which she didn't) she assumed there would be a look of perpetual fear, mixed with confusion on her face.

Double damn.

She looked at the completely stationary man, poised on his knees in the booth, the knife in his hand, and had to strongly debate with herself on the reasons it would be a very bad idea to do something unpleasant to him with that knife. There weren't that many reasons.

All the same, she turned away, after only taking away his knife. There was a weird feeling prickling at the back of her neck as if she wasn't alone. As if someone was watching her. While she had the slightest suspicion that a knife wouldn't be any use to her, it still made her feel better.

She walked forward, warily, her breath too loud and her heartbeat too hard in the piercing silence. She held the knife in front of her like a sword, but it wobbled and shook in her trembling hand. "H-hello?" she called out, tentatively, her voice absorbed immediately by the silence. No echo. This was impossible.

There was no answer to her proclamation, and she didn't want to speak out loud again. There seemed something wrong about it. She proceeded to walk down the metal spiral steps. She noticed that the stairs pressed down when she touched them, but didn't pop back up when she left. If time had stopped, which according to John, it did, then apparently what she touched, resisted that freeze. If she didn't touch it, it was just as surely contained within the confines of time.

Idly, she wondered how it worked. There was a possibility that she was moving too fast for them to see, which was why they all seemed frozen. But then again, John had said time had stopped. Literally. How did time stop? It was constant.

That smart little cookie in the back of her mind begged to differ, though. Time was relative. In the more elementary forms of physics, she had learned that time could be both positive and negative, depending on which direction the object in question being measured in time was moving in. If she thought of time as a number on a number line, than what would happen if time reached zero? Zero was neither positive or negative. It was a form of constant.

So, by stopping time, she had literally wrenched time from its places in the positive and negative dimensions, and placed it at zero.

Did that mean time had stopped across the whole world—an extremely scary thought—or did it mean that time stopped in a specific, focused area, like around the club, or throughout the town. If that was the case, then time would be uneven when she finally figured out how to start it again. Time here would be several minutes (or hours depending on how long it took her to figure this out) behind the rest of the world.

Maybe time just fixed itself after such an act. Who was she to know. Maybe the seconds passed by faster in the region she had frozen time in, until it was equal with time with the rest of the world once more. Of course, this time freeze could cover the entire world anyway, so…

Her brain hurt.

"Mental note… time sucks. Don't play with it," she muttered to herself, out loud, then winced as her voice was absorbed again. Weird.

Her heart lurched in her chest when she saw Nyx and Alexander frozen as well. It was all well and good to see Tall-dark-and-handsome eerily unmoving—she didn't like him. It was quite another to see her friends that way. They could be statues, cold marble statues with their arms wrapped around each other, a fuzzy, warm expression unmoving on Alexander's face, confusion wrinkling Nyx's brow.

There was something unusual about the way they looked, other than the fact that they were no longer on the dance floor and were still entwined in each other's arms. It had something to so with their coloration. She couldn't quite place it. She looked away, taking in her surroundings again before looking back at her friends. Then she noticed.

No light. None at all. Just as the sound from her voice had been absorbed by the still-time, light was being sucked up as well. The insane psycho-lights seemed leached of color, everyone's faces struck with the most unusual pallor. Violet squinted, realizing everything had a fuzzy, shadowed edge to it. Ignoring the fact that her fingers were probably filthy, she stuck her index finger in her eye to slide the contact off her pupil. Before she blinked it back into place, she was struck with the fact that she could see better than she had in her entire life…_without contacts_.

Hurriedly, she slid the contacts out of her eyes, and dropped them on the floor. She could see the world in sharper focus than she had ever seen anything before, even with her glasses on. It seemed her eyes were designed for this…this weird light sucking still time.

With difficulty, she tried to push all those annoying, extraneous thoughts away. She could figure this out after she had made everything normal again. She tried to remember what she had felt that made time stop in the first place. Hm… well, there was mind-numbing fear, panic, terror—basically everything she was feeling, now. Time didn't look to be any less stationary.

She tried willing it to go back to normal. She walked away from Nyx and Alexander (the sight of their bleached color made her want to be sick), and closed her eyes to concentrate. She thought of all the different combinations of 'make time go back to normal' as she could, and still… nothing. Nada. Zip. Everyone was still frozen.

Of course it made sense that being sexually harassed wasn't bad enough. That was ultimately too normal. She had to freaking break time while she was at it. That coincided with her life much better. She just couldn't win.

"DAMN IT!" she screamed out loud, frustrated. She pushed past the marble, unmoving bodies, out of the club and into the cold air.

Only, it wasn't cold. Not even close. She looked around, baffled. There were a few dried leaves caught on the wind, that were now hanging motionless in the air, suspended by nothing. She had walked to the club. She knew it was close to fifteen degrees, with an even lower wind chill. But no… she was warm.

"Makes no sense," she muttered to herself. Weather shouldn't change just because time froze. Even if the wind had stopped, the air should still be cold.

Her eyes did an automatic double-take when she thought she saw movement. Maybe she had only frozen the inside of the club.

_And the motionless leaves are what, exactly?_ She asked herself, crankily.

"Hey!" she called, realizing there was a human-esque figure running away from her. "Hey, you! Come over here! Wait, don't run away!" She growled. This was going to be very annoying. The prospect of chasing some random person through still-time while she was wearing her three inch heels caused her actual nausea. She cursed under her breath and shot after the quickly disappearing person. "Come back! I just want to talk to you! I need help!"

She brought herself to a halt after a few minutes and not even coming close to catching up. Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. She had sweat into her makeup and now there was mascara running into her eyes. This, of course, meant her eyes hurt. She flopped onto the ground miserably, in the middle of the street, in front of a car with a very hassled looking driver in the front street. "I'm safe from being attacked, now. Can time go back to normal, again?"

"Time is normal," someone said from behind her. Violet sprung to her feet, heart tripling its normal rhythm. "Sorry," he apologized, realizing he had startled her.

Violet, who had had just about enough of men for the day, backed away, warily. "Who are you?"

"Me? Oh, I live around here. Name's Liam." He bounded gracefully onto the hood of the car, crossing his legs and sitting on it, fearlessly. There was something unusual in the way he moved… as if the laws of gravity weren't applied to him. "What's your name?"

"Violet," she said, still eyeing him with serious misgivings.

"Your jacket's torn, Violet," he said, pointing to the pathetically hanging lapel. "What happened? Lunch bite back?"

Violet had no idea what he was talking about. "Uh… no." She started to edge away, trying to find her way back to the club. Sure, everyone was frozen there, so they wouldn't give her a whole lot of help, but the fact that this Liam character _wasn't_ frozen scared her even more.

He jumped off the car and bounded to meet her, easily. It seemed like her was floating. "Where are you going?"

"No where," she snarled, hoping her very stand-off attitude would give him the hint to go away. She just had to run in with a guy while she was stuck in this weird frozen time. She would rather continue finding her way alone.

"You're going pretty fast to be going no where," he pointed out. He latched on to her arm to slow her down, and the weightlessness that made him walk so easily flowed into her. She squeaked in surprise, pulling her arm out of his grasp.

"Don't do that," she snarled, her shoulders hunching forward and her knees bending in an instinctive predatorial stance. She would fight him if she had to. This surprised her. She wasn't a particularly violent person.

She was just really tired of everyone's shit.

"Why not?" he asked, confused. "You're not using your tricks. It's too slow to just walk."

Again, Violet hid the fact that she had no idea what he was talking about. "It works for me," she snapped.

He shrugged, unperturbed. "So, where are you going?"

"I told you. No where."

"I'm not stupid, you know."

"Could have fooled me."

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Maybe because I don't know you," she suggested, innocently.

He floated in front of her, and checked her every time she tried to maneuver around him. "Sure you do. I told you what my name was."

She rolled her eyes, refusing to argue this stupid point. "Why are you following me?"

"Because you won't tell me where you're going, so I'm going to have to find out myself."

"If I tell you, will you leave me alone?" she asked, unable to believe her luck. In her head, she continued to try and make time go normal again. It now had a distinct tinge of desperation to it. Anything to get her away from this freak. "Or better, yet, will you answer some questions for me."

"Sure, Violet," he said, giving her a calm, trustworthy smile.

"Alright, I'm going to the club up the ways." She pointed in the general direction she remembered the building to be.

He frowned. "You mean the dining hall?" he asked.

"No, I mean the club. Now, can you tell me what this is?" She spread her palms out, gesturing to the completely motionless world.

"Uh… air?"

"No, why is everyone frozen. Why doesn't anything move?"

His frown deepened. "Sure it moves. We're moving."

She pointed ahead of her. "Those leaves aren't moving."

He looked at her as if she was stupid. "They're human leaves. They're not supposed to move. Are you alright? Should I take you to the Elders?"

"Human leaves…" she muttered to herself. "So you, you aren't human?"

He chuckled. "Good one." Apparently he thought she was quite the jokester. "No, I'm not human," he said, putting on a mockingly simple voice for her.

"And you're not Mythic?" she continued, ignoring him.

He visibly bristled, glaring at her as if thoroughly insulted. "Where did you say you were from?"

Violet looked away. "Not here," she murmured.

"Obviously."

She was saved the trouble of forming another reply as the club came into focus. "Okay, here's where I am. Good-bye." She ran to the door, but he easily caught up with her.

"You said it wasn't the dining hall," he accused.

"There's no food here," she said.

"It's all food here," he corrected.

She walked back into the club, and noticed something very different this time. It was no longer motionless. There were people here. People who looked like Liam. They had their hands on any given human in the room, and their touch seemed to drag more of the color away from their faces. Violet felt sick.

"What is this?" she squeaked.

Liam gave her an odd look. "Lunch hour," he said, as if she were dumb.


	15. Chapter 15 Trying to Heal

**Has anyone been keeping up with the national news? Have you heard of the flooding that has hit the northeast? Yup... thats me. Fortunatley my house didn't flood, but we had a mandatory evactuation anyway, which is why I didn't get to update this earlier. It was all very hectic, very chaotic and very rainy. (I'm telling you, the tropic monsoon had nothing on us.) So, if you left me a reveiw for the last one or two chapters and I didn't reply... very sorry. There wasn't a whole lot of a chance to. **

**This chapter is Mike's, just so everyone can stop hanging from the end of their seats and asking me "what happened to mike? Is he okay?" **

Chapter 15—Trying to Heal

Panic gripped Julia's throat as she looked at Mike. There was blood everywhere. Too much blood. When she had been in the lounge, she had immediately smelled it. She smelled the way it grew, and continued to spill. She didn't know whose blood it was, and she didn't much care. Her animal instincts told her it was too much blood to lose and still live. That was the only thought she needed to take action.

She had followed the smell to one of the private bathrooms. She knocked a few times. No answer. She tried the knob. Locked. Now she could smell death. And she broke down the door.

She sobbed, now, waiting for the excruciating amount of time for Epione. Carefully, she lifted Mike's head. "Mike, look at me. Mike!" She slapped his cheek sharply, trying to get some reaction out of him.

He opened his eyes, blearily, and smiled. "Angel," he muttered.

Julia rolled her red and puffy eyes. _Yup, he's delirious_, she thought to herself.

She wasn't sure how long it would take for Epione to get there, but it already felt like much too long. She had to do something!

First aid, first aid… everyone at Haven was forced to be certified in first aid. No one liked to do it… it was always supremely embarrassing to do mouth-to-mouth with the CPR dummy, as your peers teased you from their seats. She tried to remember what it was she was supposed to do.

The bleeding had to stop. She could start with that.

Bleeding…she wracked her brain, trying to remember what to do. Her mind uselessly reminded her that this was exactly what the first aid instructors had warned them of; the moment the need arose for them to use what they learned, they would forget it if it wasn't imprinted into their second nature.

For Julia, second nature was instinct. It was the hunt, the chase. It was that prickly feeling she got on the back of her neck whenever it was about to storm. Second nature couldn't be learned. Second nature was an extrasensory intangible that just existed.

Julia shook her head, trying to focus. She had to stop the bleeding. How was she supposed to do that? In vain, she called out again. "EPIONE!"

Bandages? That seemed as good an idea as any.

Problem. No bandages.

She tore off her shirt, ripping them into strips hurriedly. It was obvious the most care needed to be attended to his wrists. In an arbitrary movie she remembered, she had learned it was more dangerous to cut down the wrist than across it. She wondered about diagonally. There were a couple of x shaped cuts, in weird ragged lines. It didn't look like he had been trying to kill himself.

Except he had cuts everywhere and a bloody shard of mirror a few inches from his hand.

She wrapped the bandaging around his arm as tight as she could, but it bled through quickly. She racked her brain, trying to remember. Pressure points! If she put pressure on the major artery in the joint, it would stop blood flow to the appendage, thusly stopping the bleeding.

Julia had a little secret confession she made to herself long ago. She completely envied monkeys, apes and orangutans. They had hands on their feet for cripes sake! How convenient was that? Julia, for one, knew exactly how convenient it was, because she had borrowed the afore said shape whenever she required an extra set of hands.

Right now, she needed an extra set. She shifted into a chimpanzee, placing both hands under one arm, feeling for the sluggish and slight pulse and putting as much pressure on it as she could manage. And then, with the feet that conveniently matched the agility of her hands, she did the same on the other side.

Now, there was nothing to do but wait.

* * *

John had fallen asleep on the couch in his suite, a book lying open across his chest. He hissed in pain, suddenly, sitting up straight, eyes shooting open and book clattering to the floor.

"Raven!" he called urgently.

Raven poked her head in from the other room, her hair damp from the shower. "What's wrong?" She recognized that tone of voice from her husband. He knew he would only become impatient if she asked him if he was okay.

"Someone's badly hurt, and they can't find Epione," John quickly. "Can Isabel find her?"

Raven never replied for the answer was obvious. Of course Isabel could find her. When the lives of her students were at risk, Isabel would do anything. Raven quickly took the wings of her Mythic form, taking off out the huge bay window at top speed, John holding onto her shoulders as they flew through the cold air.

* * *

Epione was having a dream that someone was ailed with a disease she couldn't fix. It was a thought that haunted her, especially after the empty-bug. That's what she called the new flu that was going around the school. It seemed like she was refilling health that had been taken, rather than restoring health that was weakened. Like pouring water into an empty glass. Hence the name; empty bug.

She woke with a start, sucking in a rather snorted breath. She had been called to the cafeteria before she had gotten to finish her homework, and so had returned to the library afterwards. She was on good enough terms with the librarian that she wouldn't mind her staying here after curfew.

Of course, she would get nothing more accomplished if she continued to fall asleep. Hard-core healing really drained her energy. She felt like she could sleep for a million years, and then eat the entire cafeteria. That wouldn't help her at all in her pre-med, anatomy and physiology classes, though. She smacked herself sharply across the face a few times and began studying the detailed biology chart once more.

Her mind began drifting off, uselessly, though. Idly, she wondered how convenient it would be to have a psychic connection with the people she healed. Most Mythics had some kind of sixth sense when it came to their powers… Brian could always find water, Jacob could change his eyesight to see thermal waves, even Nyx was able to sense when something bad was going to happen.

Epione loved her gift of healing, in her opinion it was the best power anyone could have. It would never hurt or harm anyone. It fixed things. Unfortunately, with it came no real psychic connection. She would like to be able to tell when someone was morbidly injured or sick, so she could go to them without needing to be called. Usually she had to depend on her peers' talents to get the word around to her.

The empty-bug had been pretty bad on Jacob. If she had gotten there any later, not even she would have been able to fix him. As it was, the hard-core refilling of health and life had all but drained her.

She yawned widely, her jaw cracking in complaint. It was Friday night. Maybe she could just skip this homework and finish it off tomorrow. In the back of her mind she knew this would be a mistake, seeing as it was a lot of homework, and she would need all three days to complete it.

As her eyes nodded closed again, she decided she didn't much care.

With difficulty, she pushed herself up, collecting her books and stuffing them in her bag. It took her a moment to realize she was trying to put the text book in the bottom end of the bag.

Stumbling down the stairs, she opened the door, making sure it was locked as she closed it again. She closed her eyes a moment, leaning against the heavy wooden door. It was surprisingly comfortable.

"Epione!"

Her eyes snapped open. "Wha?" she muttered, incoherently. "I wasn't sleeping!"

It was Isabel. Her curly hair was wild around her face, and it looked like she was still wearing her pajamas. "Epione, you're needed up at the dorms. It's urgent."

Epione made a face. She wasn't sure how much good she would be in this state. When she did a mental check of her powers, she could feel her powers complain at even the thought of using them again.

Isabel noticed this immediately. "This isn't the first time you healed today." It was not a question. Isabel actually felt the world stammer around her. She was torn between the safety of her students. She knew better than anyone what could happen when powers were over-used. Raven had once not been able to use her voice at all, when it was her gift of will-control that they needed the most. She also knew that if Epione didn't, Mike's life was possibly to pay. "Do you think you can heal again?"

Epione met the principal's cool gray eyes, and saw the unparalleled urgency, but also the intense begging for her to not do anything to hurt herself. "How bad is it?" she asked.

"It won't be your easiest healing."

"What will happen without me?" Epione didn't need Isabel's verbal answer. The way her eyes darted suddenly to the side was enough of a reply. "I'll do it."

Isabel nodded. "Raven is just outside. She'll fly you there."

* * *

Maybe she should shift to some kind of bird and find help herself. Julia was still a very stressed chimpanzee, holding onto Mike for dear life. The smell of blood was doing nothing for the chimpanzee's mind. It made it panicked and scared. It wanted to scream and run up a tree. She gritted her teeth against the animal mind. _I'm human_, she told herself. _My name is Julia, my second shape is Artemis. I'm a shape changer. I am not an animal._ This was the mantra she would repeat to herself endlessly, when her human mind and animal mind began battling against each other.

_God, Mike, if you don't survive, I don't know what I'll do._ This thought was new, different. She trusted Mike so much, more than he trusted himself she knew. She didn't know why her fate felt so connected to Mike's. She just knew that if he died, she just might, too.

Sound alerted her to the door. In came a very pale looking Epione, followed by Siren. Julia gasped, though it sounded a little weird when it came out of a chimpanzee mouth. She had never seen Raven in her second shape. It was an incredible transformation.

"What happened?" Epione asked, kneeling beside Mike and the very bloody chimpanzee.

Julia shifted back to human. "He's cut himself. I've been trying to stop the bleeding. I was afraid to leave him, to get you. He hasn't regained consciousness again. Is it too late? Is he…" she choked on the words. Tears were beginning to spill onto her cheeks again, now that she didn't have anything to distract her.

"Come here, Julia," Siren said. "Let's go sit out here."

Siren's voice was so beautiful! It made her warm, calm, sleepy. She found herself following her teacher's request, even though she really wanted to stay with Mike. There was a subtle song weaving through the tense silence, that seemed only for her.

She went out to sit in the common area without a word of complaint.

"Do you need anything?" Raven asked Epione. She had changed back to her human form, for fear of her voice affecting the girl's skills.

"Gatorade," Epione said immediately. Raven gave her a confused look. "Not for him, for me. I'm exhausted."

John and Isabel rushed into the room at that very moment, breathless and panting. Raven turned to John. "Gatorade?"

A bottle of Gatorade appeared at Epione's side. She opened it and guzzled it all, impressed that even though it wasn't real, it tasted the same and gave her the same sudden jerk of energy. Idly, she wondered how many of the school lunches were really just clever illusions. The filet mignon was definitely too good to be real. "Thanks," she muttered, and started healing.

Her powers shouted in protest. She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the wounds and what would need to be done to fix them, and saw nothing. She felt around, trying to see just how much life he had in him. Blood loss… a lot, too much. But the bleeding had at least stopped, thanks to Julia's quick thinking. If he was taken to a hospital, he would definitely survive. The only problem was the certain oddities in his anatomy would definitely raise a red flag there. The school would certainly be revealed as something other than a private institution for gifted young people.

_Concentrate!_ She ordered herself. His life force was shaky, but then, he was the embodiment of death. Maybe it was always this way. She didn't know. She had never healed him before.

If she could strengthen his life force, he might have enough fight left in him to survive. Her powers refused to do it, though. She grumbled in annoyance, and shoved her own life force to him, making sure he took it, embraced it, and accepted it. _You're going to live, dammit, whether you want to or not_.

Immediately she could sense his wounds knitting back together, the skin stretching back to cover the gaping holes. He would still be weak and dizzy for a few days, until his blood restored itself, but there was nothing she could do about that at this point. At this point, she felt closer to death than he did.

He opened his eyes, and she moved her hands. Mike pushed himself up, looking around, his memory coming back to him as he saw the shattered mirror, the faint scars on his arms. He blushed. He was an idiot. "Thanks," he murmured.

Epione shook her head, nauseas and weak. "Don't thank me. Thank your girlfriend. She got here first. I wouldn't have made it in time if not for her."

Mike looked around in confusion, then saw a brown curly topped head peak from around the door frame. Oh yeah… so the grizzly bear was no dream.

Julia's eyes were tight with worry when she walked tentatively up to him. "Are you okay?" The better question was 'what the hell were you thinking', but she decided it could wait, given the circumstances.

Mike wanted to say yes, he was fine, but knew it would be a lie. Julia deserved better than that. He hadn't been trying to hurt himself, that was for sure. He didn't want to die, that was definite. But he didn't want to be a Mythic… at least not Hades. It sucked. It would never stop sucking. He wanted to say he would never do something like this again, but that would be a lie too. It would not be difficult for him to feel this desperately lost again; all he needed to do was use his powers for taking souls. "I'm sorry," he muttered, finally, realizing Julia was still waiting for an answer.

She let out a sob, and all the tears started again. "You idiot!" she snapped, throwing herself at him and giving him a tight hug.

He sighed, comfortably, feeling his naturally cold body being warmed by Julia's vast, expansive life. "I know," he muttered, and hoped he remembered if it ever came to a next time.

* * *

It was a long time before everything was sorted out enough to retire once more. Mike was spending the next few days in the nurse's office, under strict supervision with all potentially sharp objects far out of reach. Epione had taken up a cot there, too, waiting to get her strength back after the strenuous healing from the last day. Everyone was finally accounted for and put to bed, and the private bathroom on the first floor was closed off until it could be cleaned up and repaired.

Isabel sighed, sitting heavily on a chair, her forehead on her hands. It was amazing that despite all the protections they put on the students in this school, they were still capable of coming to harm within the school's own walls. She had naively thought that everything was alright.

"What are you going to do?" Tyler asked, his crooked hooks of hands folded under his arms.

Isabel shook her head. "I've called in a favor to one of our old students. He married a psychiatrist a few years back. Ethan said she didn't like where she was working, anyway…" she trailed off uselessly, the weight of her head in her hands almost too much. When this school had started, she had been a little leery of the idea. She was used to protecting herself, and perhaps a few close friends. Now she was the protector of hundreds of students. The weight of all the people who depended on her pressed even more insistently, now that she realized everything was not as okay as she wanted to think.

"You hired a school psychologist? What good is that going to do?"

"Don't you think I'm trying!" Isabel snarled. "I don't know what to do, okay! This is the best I've got."

"Isabel, the students need to talk to people who actually understand them, who have gone through the same thing. A human psychiatrist won't even begin to brush the surf—"

Isabel was suddenly very angry at her boyfriend, her boyfriend for the last three years. She remembered him as a kid, maybe eleven or twelve years old, when she had saved him from a ruthless Mythic who liked to experiment with the Mythic gene. She remembered when they started going out, he had yelled at her to stop thinking of him as the kid she had saved and start thinking of him as a fellow Mythic wanting to do some good.

When it came down to it, they were too much alike. They were both cold, mercilessly sarcastic, and hard-wired to survive. Isabel knew Tyler loved her, but try as she might, she could not love him in return.

"—you're a smart girl! Why can't you—" Tyler was not aware that Isabel was not listening.

"Tyler!" she interrupted. "Shut up!"

He closed his mouth, looking insulted. "What's the matter with you lately? It's like you don't even know who you are anymore."

Isabel bristled. "Get out," she ordered, pointing to the door.

He crossed his arms over his chest, stubbornly, making it clear that he wasn't going anywhere.

Isabel made a face to herself. How little he knew her. She changed shape, her body growing, her skin taking on a translucent green color, and many vibrant colored snakes replacing her chestnut curls. They hissed, sensing Medusa's agitation. "Now," she ordered, meeting his gaze with her cold gray stare.

Isabel rarely ever took her second shape anymore; most of her work here at the school required her other, sometimes not-so-legal skills. So, when Tyler met the gaze of not only Medusa, but many very poisonous snakes, he decided it would be a very appropriate idea to do as she said.

Medusa sighed as the door slammed closed. She wondered when it happened that she had become such an emotional basket-case. She also wondered why, every night for the last three days she had had vivid dreams of David Connor. It made the wound from his death fresh, just as painful as the day he was murdered. That just might be why she was such an emotional basket-case.

It frightened her. For, in her dream, David was trying to tell her something.

Only, he couldn't, because when she came close enough to speak, he put his hands on her face and leeched her very life away from her.

Freaking scary.


	16. Chapter 16 Unimaginative

**I'm very sorry this chapter took so stinking long. I had writer's block like you wouldn't beleive, plus the basic home-life insanity. So basically, I took a break for a couple days and read a new book. (Uglies by Scott Westerfeld... highly recommmend). But here I am, new chapter, more CONFLICTS, and some precious info on the nature of Nosophorus. Has anyone figured out what they are yet? Here's a hint... its the last thing you'll guess. teehee! **

**and YES, I do have an unnatural obsession with the number thirteen. Basically, its my lucky number because its everyone else's unlucky number. **

**A deserved thankyou for this chapter goes to my sisters who gave me the thirteen letter words. **

Chapter 16—Home

"What's that?" Nyx asked, giving Alexander a questioning look. The kohl on her eyes was starting to smudge from sweat, but it didn't take away any of the intensity of her slowly blinking brown eyes.

Alexander shook his head. He couldn't believe he had said it. The biggest, most important rule the Elders had given him—_don't let the Mythics know what we are_, he had tanked for an iced-tea, a kiss and a pair of intensely staring eyes. Bugger!

Nyx pressed herself against him, resting her head on his chest. "Come on, Alexander. You can tell me. I won't tell anyone. I promise."

Through the fuzzy dim thought of his brain, he could swear he actually heard the ping of a pin being dropped. He was being played. No this was worse than being played. He had wrapped himself around her little finger, completely and entirely under her control. He was the Nosophorus, the higher breed. It was supposed to go the other way around.

And then, he was angry. Roughly, he pushed Nyx away from him. She stumbled back, surprise in her eyes. "No," Alexander said, flatly, dangerously.

Nyx narrowed her eyes. "What?" The note of danger in his voice was matched pitch for tone in Nyx's.

"I said no."

She looked, for a moment, like she was torn between arguing further and cracking him once in the face. The expression cleared in a moment's time, to something bordering humorous. She laughed. "It doesn't matter if you tell me or not. I'm going to find out, anyway."

"How?" he challenged.

Nyx grinned, slow and easy, teeth glittering maliciously. "You told me your name."

"It means nothing to you," he insisted, though there was an insistent, rather irritating, tremor in his heart that belied his words. He hadn't known Nyx and Violet for very long, hardly more than two days… or maybe it was three by now. He knew what the girls were capable of, though. These were not the sweetly smiling damsels from old human stories. These were two very strong women who knew exactly what strings to pull to get exactly what they wanted.

He gulped.

Nyx noticed this with a touch of pleasure. "You're wrong. It means everything to me." She stepped forward, closer to him, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Do you know what happens when I type the word Mythics into a search engine?" He gave her a blank look. "I learn about us… maybe not everything. The whole thirteen thing is always overlooked, and we're always made out to be some kind of monsters. But there are records of us everywhere, if you know how to read the myths right." She paused, matching his seething glare with her steady eyes. "What will I find when I type in Nosophorus?"

"Why are you doing this?" Alexander hissed. Nyx was getting involved in things more dangerous than she realized. She thought she was playing with fire. In reality, she had an activated atomic bomb in her hands.

She closed the distance between them. They were standing nose to nose, now, glaring at each other for all they were worth. "Because, you're hurting people and letting Violet take the blame." She turned sharply, beginning to walk away. Alexander, furious, latched onto her wrist, whirling her back around.

"How did you know?"

She scoffed. "We both knew. We're not stupid. If everyone thought it was her, then it had to be someone who looked like her." She looked him up and down, unimpressed. "Tall and skinny with pale skin and platinum hair. The only difference was your eyes, and Julia suggested—"

"Julia was in on this, too?" he asked, blanching even paler. How had they set all of this up in a day? With all the drama from classes and then the infamous Splat game, it seemed no less than impossible.

Nyx nodded, sidling her wrist out of his loosening grasp. "Julia said you were a predator; that it was obvious from the way you moved, how you looked at us. She said there are some animals that take on different changes immediately after they hunt. She figured that's why your eyes are purple and Violet's are brown. Violet doesn't hunt."

She grinned at his dumbstruck expression, once again turning to leave. At this point, she was all funned out. All she wanted was to grab Violet and start the long walk back to the school, closing and locking the gate before Alexander could get there. She had to get one more thought in before she did. "Never underestimate us Mythics," she sneered, her head barely turning back to him to deliver the comment.

A sound came from behind her, from where Alexander was standing, but couldn't come from Alexander. The sound was guttural, harsh and deadly, impossible to come from human vocal chords. It was worse than the hiss of a cobra, the roar of a lion or the snarl of a shark. It was all of those things, combined and multiplied. Nyx was not afraid of anyone (besides maybe Isabel), but hearing that sound froze her instincts and paralyzed her with fear. She felt like she had Julia's animal senses, knowing when she was the predator and when she was the prey.

Right now, she was very much the prey.

She dared a glance behind her, and saw Alexander, seething, crouched low, his arms pulled slightly behind him, shoulders lifted… he was going to pounce.

Nyx tore her eyes from his gaze, and bolted, trying to make it back to the mass of dancers and somehow hide herself among the chaos. She felt him coming behind her, and at that moment her hands buzzed. Her foot caught on the floor and she stumbled to the ground.

Alexander leaped right over her.

Using the moment of confusion, Nyx's eyes darted around, making sure no one was paying too much attention to them, then changed into her second shape. As a black shadow, in the expensive lighting systems of the club, she would be near invisible.

She pressed herself into a corner, making herself as small as possible, hardly even daring to breathe. She continued to remind herself that it was quite dark in this corner, and the walls were painted black, so there was no way he could see her.

"Hello, Nyx," Alexander greeted. He was staring right at her.

Nyx swore loudly, shifting back to human because she had better muscle strength that way (more she actually _had_ muscle in human form). She lifted a foot, planning to land her clunky combat boot in a well-aimed spot, but Alexander pressed his pale hands to her face.

There was the fleeting sense of something inside her shifting, breaking open. Her eyes were getting blurry. She could only see Alexander's platinum hair and his sharp amethyst eyes, that were gradually softening from harsh and predatory to desperately apologetic. His lips moved, he might be whispering, but the music was so_ loud_.

"I'm sorry."

Something was crushing her… her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor. Alexander's hands were on her face. What was he doing? She didn't like it. It wasn't as painful as having her soul ripped from her physical body, but it wasn't what she would ever describe as a leisurely stroll among spring flowers.

It felt… intrusive. She knew he was taking something away, something important, something she would probably end up missing later. It was kind of like a leech or a tick, sucking away her blood as she remained unaware, until she was struck with Lyme disease or weak from blood loss.

He was taking something more important than blood. She couldn't figure out what it was, but she wanted it back. She wanted him to stop. But she was paralyzed. Her body _would not obey_.

Fight. She couldn't. Scream. She wouldn't. Not if it revealed Haven.

Her mind was not paralyzed, though. She was able to think of how bad this was, not painful, but still making her feel low and dirty. She wondered if this was how Amanda had felt when he did it to her. She felt an unknown wash of emotion flood into her at that thought.

Nyx knew if she survived (and an annoying part of her reminded her that she probably wouldn't, because both of the other victims had needed Epione to heal them), she would come after Alexander in any way she could. If Amanda had only been able to see the platinum hair and super-pale skin and took it as Violet, of course she would retaliate. There was no such thing as damsels in distress at Haven. Each girl and boy fought for their own.

Amanda would not cry if she was hurt. She would get even, make sure no one would hurt her again. She had used the Splat game to do it. Sure, making the tortured teenager steal the souls of his team was pushing it a little far, but Nyx didn't feel the same anger for her as she did before.

In fact, that weird feeling was sorrow. Not for herself, but for Amanda. Nyx at least knew, kind of, what was happening. Amanda had been completely naïve of anything. She actually pitied the beautiful charmer.

She felt sleepy. She tried to open her eyes, but they were much too heavy. Alexander's hands were still on her face, the heel of his palm pressing into her forehead, his other hand cupped just under her chin, at the bend between her throat and lower jaw. There was something wet dripping onto her face, that tasted salty when they fell onto her lips. Tears. Not hers.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He was sobbing.

She thought about calc class… he hadn't done problem thirteen. She remembered the Splat game. She had been close enough to see that entire unfolding of events. Alexander had only fallen when Jacob said phantasmagoric. Nyx did a little mental math.

Phantasmagoric was thirteen letters.

He had freaked out when he realized he would be playing on team thirteen for Splat. When anyone said thirteen, he would make this weird face, as if grimacing in pain.

Whatever a Nosophorus was, she felt suddenly certain that Alexander was tridecaphobic. He was afraid of thirteens.

Nyx swallowed a few times, clearing her throat as she mentally counted words in her head. "Phantasmagoric," she rasped.

Alexander flinched, as if struck, his hands lifting a bit off her face.

"Resplendently," she croaked. "Championships. Scintillating. Hypochondriac." Shit! She couldn't think of anymore. "Thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen!"

Alexander's hands were off his face. He was swearing like a sailor, wincing repeatedly.

"Get out of here!" she screeched, unable to stand but still charged with anger. She did a little more word-math. She wished Violet was here. She would be much better at this than she was. "Kleptomaniacs. Pathologically. Mathematician."

She could swear she saw Alexander's chest and shoulders relax, as if sighing in relief. "Thank you," he mouthed, still wincing and twitching.

He was gone.

Nyx sighed, closing her eyes in relief. For now, she was alive. Maybe not for much longer, but for the time being, at least. Before she succumbed to unconsciousness, she fished an eyeliner pencil from her corset, and scribbled a word along her cheek, as best as she could when her arms felt heavy as lead. _Unimaginative_. Thirteen letters. She was safe.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Alexander almost keeled over in shock as the stinging residue of that bloody number mixed with the bitter cold. He gasped, hunching over and folding his arms to his chest.

He hated the cold.

He felt like dirt. Worse than dirt. Lower than dirt. What was lower than dirt?

He felt like a Mythic.

It was wrong that it bothered him so deeply. He had fed off Nyx, a Mythic, a part of the school, and one of the reasons he had been sent to this world in the first place. She was just another Mythic, an animal, his eternal enemy.

He knew he was lying to himself.

It was her own fault he did it. She was the one who wouldn't leave well enough alone, who continued to poke and probe, even when he clammed up and said nothing. It was her fault she was intelligent and observant.

Of course, it was this observance that probably saved her life. He knew for a fact he had never revealed his skittish with thirteens. He would not have been able to stop until she was dead. If he didn't, the Elders would know of it. Sure, he was only saving his own skin, but he happened to like his skin.

Nyx was very lucky that she thought as quickly as she did.

He made a face as he started to walk aimlessly. He hadn't even been to the school for three days and he was beginning to care for Nyx, respect Julia and Kim, fear Mike, despise Jacob… he was becoming ingrained into the school livelihood, and the lives in the school were becoming part of him.

Bugger!

He wouldn't be allowed to return unless he did what he came here for. He didn't want to stay in this world, it was too cold, and much harder to get a meal when the prey could fight back. But he couldn't return, questioning his entire upbringing, and not completing the one task that was set to him.

So basically, he had no where to go in either world. The Mythics had Haven. The Nosophorus had Still-time. What about a Nosophorus who pitied the Mythics he fed off? What about a kid who almost killed the girl he had feelings for? What about him?

In the end, there was only one choice. He could never remain at Haven, and there was no where else for him in this world. If he returned to Still-time, he could go back to his old friends and tell him the stories about how acutely disgusting Mythics were. The Elders would let him slide for feeding off Mythics because there was a fresh lack of humans in Haven to chose from. People did desperate things when they were starving, after all.

Still-time would seem small and boring after all this. He would probably go crazy from the mundane shift. He supposed he could deal with it, though. He would have to.

He had to set his plans in order, now, before he chickened out and changed his minds. Before he let himself learn the truth… that he felt more at home in Haven than he ever had at Still-time.

It all depended on one thing. That the gate to Haven was never repaired from when Nyx had broken it.

He wasn't a complete slime-ball, though. He would make sure Violet and Nyx were safe, first.


	17. Chapter 17 Learning

**A) This chapter is really weird. **

**B) This chapter is very long. **

**C) This chapter will make you all want wingbands. **

**You have been warned. **

Chapter 17—Learning

_Lunch hour_, Violet thought, the unmistakably burn of vomit splashing up into her throat. She swallowed it down again resolutely, but the sickening disgust burning in the pit of her stomach refused to be settled.

"Is there something wrong?" Liam's voice seemed like it was from far away, as if he was shouting through a long subway tunnel. Upchuck bubbled back into Violet's throat.

It was worse than déjà vu, she decided. Déjà vu would entitle that she maybe possibly could have seen this before. She knew for an absolute and unquestionable fact that she had seen this before. She didn't know what from, how, or what exactly it was, but she did know that it was an unmistakable _bad thing_.

She swayed a little on her three inch bright red stilettos, feeling faint. Blackness was beginning to swim in front of her eyes.

"Violet?" Liam exclaimed, worry beginning to pierce his voice. "Are you okay?"

She was _not_ going to pass out. There was a time and place for succumbing to complete shock, and right now, stuck in a strange frozen time where her life was very possibly in danger, was not one of those places. She smacked herself soundly across the cheek, the white hot fissure of pain across her face reawakening her senses, erasing the niggling dizzy spell.

"Ouch?" Liam commented, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "So what are you looking for here? There's a few rich stiffs up there with great stagnant guilt, and I know for a fact that one right there is cheating on her husband."

Violet was getting really tired of pretending she knew what he was talking about, but had felt an instinctive wash of dread come over her whenever he mentioned the Elders. If there was something unusual about her, he would take her to them, and Violet had a funny feeling that that would be a bad idea. Until she figured out what was going on, she would have to play along. "Er… this is actually my first time at this dining hall," she said, hoping he mistook her hesitation for nervousness.

He laughed. "So that explains it. You've been stuck eating stomach-food all this time." He shook his head sadly, as if he was pitying her. "Parents are Newheads?"

Violet laughed in what she hoped sounded sheepishly. "Guilty," she muttered. If being a Newhead explained it to him, there was no reason she should set him straight.

"You run away?" he asked.

Violet shrugged. _Seems as good an idea as any_. "Guilty again," she said.

He nodded appreciatively. "If my parents were Newheads, I would runaway, too. So I take it you've never leeched before, either."

Violet gulped. "Is that what that is," she asked, pointing to the pigment-stolen humans.

He smiled at her, and Violet had that very uncool squashing feeling she got whenever she was ignorant about something everyone else took for granted. She decided it was worse than her reoccurring naiveté about boys and sex. It was worse because she knew, at a point, she did know what all of this was. She had probably done it, too.

She just couldn't remember.

"Come on, give it a try. You'll like it, I promise," Liam said, reading the frustration on her face, but interpreting it differently. "We can share, since it's your first time."

Violet bit her lip. She wanted to know what was going on, and she had a desperate hope that if she did this leeching thing, she could regain her lost memory. This did not make the sight of these human having their very being sucked away from the touch of these things any less sickening. "Does it hurt?"

Liam laughed. "Of course not. It feels great."

"No for us," Violet clarified. "For them, the humans we feed on. Does it hurt them?"

Liam shrugged as if it mattered little to him. "Sometimes, rarely, if we feed off a person, they'll be so receptive, they can switch back into Still-time from our contact and start fighting back. Other than that…" Again he shrugged. He didn't care.

Violet shuddered at the thought of purposefully hurting someone, for nothing but her own, temporary pleasure. She wondered if the damage was permanent. Was the damage even physical? What if it ended up screwing up the victim's brain? There were a lot of crazy people in the world. What if these people were the reason for it?

She slowed her brain down to a halt with difficulty. Right now, she was just jumping to conclusions. The only way she could see what this was really about would be to test it. The only way she could test it would be to do this leeching thing on a human, somehow get out of Still-time and see the human again, in normal time.

More upchuck. She was evil. She was about to do a science experiment on a conscious being. She remembered a certain Mythic doing the same thing that John had told her about. He was Eris's father… he did cruel and agonizing tests on children with the Mythic gene that hadn't been born on the thirteenth.

That was why Tyler's hands were all screwed up.

She was no better than that.

"Okay," she said, her voice shaking a little.

Liam beamed at her. "You'll do it?"

Violet gave a nervous little half smile, her stomach churning like she had just swallowed live snakes. "I just said I would, didn't I?"

"Excellent!" He grabbed her wrist lightly, to pull her forward, and again that weird anti-gravity lightness hit her. She pulled her wrist out if his grasp.

"How are you doing that?" she asked, pointing to his weirdly floating feet.

He seemed shocked. "Wow, your parents really were Newheads. They didn't teach you how to use your tricks?" It was obvious this question was rhetorical so Violet didn't reply. "What kind of stuff are you good at?" he asked. Violet stared at him blankly. "You know, I like drawing, so all of my tricks are decided on patterns and shades and dimensions."

She shrugged. "I'm pretty good at math." And that was about all she was good at.

He made a face. "I've never even heard of someone's tricks coming from math. You'll have to figure it out yourself."

Violet paused, thinking about it. The reason for gravity was the constant pull of momentum by the rotation of the earth. If time had stopped, couldn't she thusly assume that the earth had stopped spinning? She resisted the urge to continue that thought very far on the negative side, for she thought that the earth might just fall out of orbit if it wasn't spinning…unless the entire solar system had ceased to function, in which case…

Her brain hurt, again.

If the earth had stopped spinning, there would be no gravity, so thusly she should be able to…

She felt that same bubbly lightness that she had gotten when Liam held onto her wrist. Except now, Liam was three feet away, keeping his hands to himself, and Violet was bounding around like an astronaut on the moon.

Very cool.

"See, easy isn't it? Much better than walking." He beckoned her forward, hands outstretched, lightly brushing against the frozen humans surrounding them. "Lots of possibilities here. It's a little tainted of course… there's at least one Mythic in the bunch, but there's been worse."

"Like what?" Violet asked, innocently.

"Like that old dining hall down the ways, that was completely over-come by them. It's terrible."

Violet had a pretty strong feeling of where the old dining hall was."Why?"

He stared at her dubiously. "Why? Because they're Mythics. They're too dangerous together." He shuddered at the very thought, then stopped, his hands lingering over a tall blond girl with a drink in her hand. "Here's a good one. Just put your hand on her skin somewhere, and…" he demonstrated, but Violet cut him off.

"Wait, do you mind if I pick one?" Violet interrupted. She had no idea who this girl was, but she didn't seem that much older than herself. What if she was just another kid trying to escape from the pressures of life, and she completely destroyed it?

There was only one human in the club that she felt she wouldn't have any guilt if she hurt him, probably because he would have hurt her if she had given him half a chance.

She followed the act of what Liam had been doing before, keeping her hands outstretched and lightly brushing a bare arm or hand, her fingers whispering across thousands of different faces. It was weird, the way they felt. Cold and firm, like a half frozen steak.

She pretended she couldn't find anything on the first floor, steering expertly away from Nyx and Alexander, and headed up the winding stair case, skipping every four or five steps. She liked anti-gravity.

There he was, the Devil Incarnate, still poised as if to attack an invisible person, his right hand clenched around a knife that was no longer there, the one she had stolen and then lost ages ago.

"What about him?" she asked Liam, innocently, pointing in the general direction of Tall-dark-and-handsome.

Liam brushed his fingers over him and whistled. "Dark, angry, sadistic…" he said, closing his eyes. "And controlling." He opened his eyes, giving her a bemused look. "You're sick," he stated, biting back a smile.

"Is it not good?" she asked, worried that she had given herself away in all of her clumsy ignorance.

"Not at all," Liam said. "I completely approve." He guided her hands to rest on Devil Incarnate's poised wrist, then rested his own hands on his face. "Ready?" he asked. Violet nodded, nervously. "When I say go, just think leeching thoughts. The instinct is basically programmed into you. One, two, three…go!"

She was unsure how to think leeching thoughts if she wasn't even positive of what leeching was, but as it turned out, Liam was right about the programmed instinct. Her body basically knew what to do.

There was something blocking her path, something human and weak, trying futilely to resist her. How quaint. She knew she could mold and slide around it, but it would be just so fun to break it, make it shatter into a million unrecognizable pieces. Like ice. Like falling through ice into cold water. Let him see her hell.

And with just that though, she felt that thing, whatever it was, crumble and yield to her, broken to absolutely nothing.

Distantly, she was aware of smiling. She liked it.

Once that annoying human resistance was gone, she was immediately overwhelmed with this man's entire life and being. It washed over her, as powerful and inviting as a warm Caribbean wave, enveloping her in his emotions.

Liam had gotten the emotions right when he had lightly brushed him. There was anger, so much of it, and it filled her up deeper than any steak or prime rib. She swallowed down the rich, intoxicating wine of control, relishing at how easy it was to take it from him. She absorbed his sickly-sweet desire through her very pores, feeling her skin prickle and shiver with excitement all her own.

There was lingering pain there that she lapped up like a kitten drinking milk. It tasted good! His father had walked out on him when he was a baby, and his mother could barely stand to look at him. Though the wounds were old, when she prodded them, reminding him, they oozed fresh, new and delicious.

She came across something that might have been happiness, bubbly and joyous, like champagne held on her tongue before she swallowed. It wasn't nearly as rich as pain and didn't have half of the dangerous spices of anger, but it was still nice. Like ice-cream on a super hot day. No, like the first time ever eating ice-cream as a toddler, finally realizing that cold and mushy didn't always mean frozen baby food.

The deeper she went, the more she tasted and learned, the more she wanted. How bad would it hurt him if she just sucked him dry, leeching away all of his pain, anger and torment, but also taking his happiness and joy. How bad would it be for him to never feel anything ever again?

"Violet."

Stupid voice. It was bothering her, tugging at her shoulders, pinching her wrist, trying to pull her away. When she was done, she was definitely beating the voice up. Or maybe she could leech the voice, too. There was worry there. She could only imagine how delectable worry must be.

"Violet!"

Arm in throat, pulling her back. Ouch. Couldn't breathe. Ouch. She lost contact with the human, Stupid Voice pulling her too far away. She smacked his arm, annoyed, the bend of his elbow wedged tight against her trachea. She tried to slide sideways, and slip between the gap in between his fist and shoulder, but found that Stupid Voice was actually intelligent, locking the gap with his other arm, and twisting his hand onto her head, pushing her head forward as his arm pushed her back. Ouch.

"Violet! You can't do that!"

She screamed, wild and buzzing with leftover energy, kicking her legs up to push her weight backwards. Stupid Voice grunted and stumbled back, but refused to loosen his hold.

"Violet, if you touch him again, you'll lose him. The Elders do terrible things to Nosophorus who lose humans. Violet, _stop fighting me_!"

More for the fact that she couldn't breathe than anything else, she relaxed, though the buzz of energy remained. She opened her eyes, to find everything sharper somehow, clearer and more defined. When she looked down at her hands, she realized they were shaking. Even though she didn't know the first thing about fighting, she wanted to turn around and rip out Liam's throat for pulling her away. It was like being super-charged on adrenaline. Adrenaline and caffeine.

"Okay, I'm going to let you go, now. Don't freak out, okay." Slowly, he released her, and Violet rubbed her sore throat.

"That hurt," she stated, angry and buzzing.

"Yeah, sorry," he said. "But you were taking way too much. Are you still buzzy?"

Violet looked at him funny, seething from all the leftover emotions, hard-wired and feeling very dangerous.

"Apparently you are. Maybe sadistic and angry wasn't the best choice for your first time. Come on, you need to walk. It eases off as you move."

Violet nodded, eyes darting around jumpily, as if ready to attack the first thing she saw. If she cared to look in a mirror, she would find that her eyes had shifted to a riveting shade of amethyst. "Do you get like this too? All…"

"Buzzy," Liam suggested with a chuckle. "We all do, especially when we're younger. It's nice, isn't it?"

Now that Violet felt like the urge to kill someone had ebbed away, she couldn't help but agree. It was like being a tiger, but better, more powerful, because she knew she didn't need claws or teeth to kill anything. At the rigid feeling of her muscles, the sure balance in her floating steps, and the blatant disregard for fear, she knew she was dangerous. She felt dangerous.

"Sorry about getting all weird," she said, though it was hard to feel really sorry when she was this much in control. "I didn't know that's what would happen."

"It's alright. I should have warned you. I always thought everyone knew about being buzzy, but then, if your parents are such Newheads…" he trailed off, as if that was explanation enough.

Violet found that even walking, she still had so much energy, she was liable to jump out of her own skin. "What do you usually do when you're buzzy?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. "You sure you want to? It's kind of scary, plus you've only gotten buzzy once. You'd probably—"

She cut him off with a raised hand. The thought of being afraid of anything right now was completely absurd, and she was certain that this 'buzzy' thing would eat her alive if she didn't do something. "I'm game."

* * *

"So it's pretty easy," Liam said, pulling off his shirt and strapping a black band across his bicep, forearm and wrist. He did the same for his other arm. "These are wingbands. The work off the static electricity in the ground, and reverse it so you're pushed upwards. As you move your arms you move forward. Its hard work, but—" 

Violet needed to hear no more. She already knew that these wingbands had to work, because it was the exact same technique Kim used on her sneakers to get her to fly during Splat. She took off the torn jacket, making a mental note to figure out how to fix it later, and tied it safely around her waist. She then grabbed the other six wingbands, strapping them to her arms as she had seen Liam do. Liam was still explaining how to build speed, bank and turn when Violet took a running jump off the high building, stretching her arms wide.

Immediately, an electric shock buzzed through her arms, as the wingbands recognized her charge and weight and began taking the immediate steps to hold her up. Her fall increased speed, the wind rushing past her face and whipping her hair into her eyes.

Just when she was about to think that it was probably a really bad idea to jump off a building with flying equipment she didn't know how to use, a painful jerk pulled at her wrists, nearly pulling her arms out of her shoulders. Her hands pulled over her head as the rest of her body kept falling. Again came that feeling of her shoulders being jerked out of their sockets as her hands remained in place.

She bounded back up, the momentum carrying her right through, and back into the air.

This time she was ready, and she tucked her arms into her chest, her shoulders still in agony. This time, when the bands kicked in, her body was able to balance on her arms.

"Mental note, free falling hurts," she muttered to herself.

Liam floated gracefully down beside her, his arms close to his chest. "I could have told you that."

Violet made a face at him, then gingerly stretching her arms again, tried to move forward. Immediately, her muscles started quivering, trying to hold up her own weight above the wingbands. Her arms decided she was basically being stupid, and collapsed, once more leaving her hanging by her wingbands in mid-air. "What is the trick to this?"

Liam moved his arms slowly and carefully, letting her see the motion in required. It looked a lot like when kids pretended they were birds in make-believe games, flapping their arms up above their heads and then down to their sides like imaginary wings. "Just make sure you keep your arms tight, or you'll be hanging again."

This turned out to be much easier said than done. Flapping was just fine in theory, and when Liam did it, he made it seem as smooth and graceful as a falcon. It was much harder than that, though. Not only did she have to remember to keep her arms at a specific angle to keep from hanging, but as she flapped, her muscles quivered and burned with the effort of holding up her own body weight. It was like staying in the up position of a push-up, except instead of having her arms right underneath her, they were spread out at an one-eighty angle to her sides.

Oh yeah, and the fact that she was twenty feet in the air.

"Come on, do you want to dive?" Liam asked her.

"Will I get to bring my arms in?" she asked.

He nodded, and climbed a few more feet up. Violet groaned and followed suit, completely soaked in sweat, and fairly certain that Amanda's suit was ruined. Wingbanding was hard work. She had already lost most of the buzz from leaching, and now she was just running purely on overdrive, well-aware of the fact that she had eating nothing that day besides four half melted ice-cream sandwiches and human emotions, and that she had been awake for what was slowly nearing twenty-four hours, and that she was still very much stuck

But as she followed Liam's lead, pressing her arms to her side and tilting forward, the world rushing up to meet her, she decided she didn't care. This was too much fun.

At the very last minute, hardly three feet from the ground, she threw her arms in front of her, keeping her arms from being ripped from her shoulders, but still causing a sudden jerk of her body hitting her fists. There was more to this wingbanding than met the eye.

"How do you go fast?" she asked Liam, turning in mid-air to rest on her back. Of course, it was like hanging vertical off a monkey bar, making her arms quiver in seconds.

Liam smirked at her. "You know, if you use your anti-gravity, it will make it a lot easier."

Violet's jaw dropped in outrage, glaring at Liam for all she was worth. "You tell me this now?" she shrieked, at the same time thinking through her little anti-gravity theory. Almost instantly, some of the pressure relieved off her arms. It still required a whole lot of strength and skill, but at least she didn't feel like she was in some kind of sadistic isometric boot camp.

"Well I would have if you didn't jump off the building."

"But I was _buzzy_!" she argued, laughing.

"Are you still?" he asked, copying her previous manner of flotation, leaning back on an invisible couch.

"No," she said, with a touch of sadness. Liam laughed when he noticed it.

"I told you it was great." He motioned her forward, then demonstrated how to get speed, showing how to twist and bank in case of obstacles. Thankfully, as speed and momentum picked up, flapping wasn't as necessary. They were able to smoothly glide through the different static charges of the city, Liam admittedly more competent than Violet.

As Violet flew, talking was completely out of the option. While it was a bit easier now that she was going fast and knew to use her anti-gravity, there were still moments when she swerved to miss a tree, and ended up careening out of control, yanked by her arms back to the familiar hanging position. There were bruises beginning to form around the wingbands, where they cut into her skin from being jerked around.

It gave her a chance to think, though. Liam was a skilled flyer, and if she was too out of control, knew how to grab her and keep her steady without losing his own air. That way, she didn't have to worry too much about anything terrible… like running into a tree and dying.

She thought about how she had switched into Still-time in the first place. She had been panicked and afraid, so her dormant powers had just worked instinctively to her fear. According to Liam, though, all she had to do was remember what her powers were focused on. His was drawing. Hers was math.

She had already worked out a tentative theory about how this time thing worked. She figured when she used her tricks to get her an answer, the math behind it didn't actually have to be right. It just had to make sense to her.

Or at least, she hoped. Or she would be stuck here for a lot longer than she expected.

"Hey, Liam!" she called out, shouting as he had some distance on her. Her right arm dipped a little as she tried to stop, but she miscalculated her speed, ending up twirling around in a circle, feeling like a rubber band wrapped around her own arms. "Oww!" she whined when she finally stopped, crawling her way above her arms again.

"What's wrong?"

"My arms are about to fall off. Can we go back to the cl—I mean, the dining hall?"

"You're hungry already?" he asked, amazed.

"No," Violet assured him. "I just want to see something."

"Sure," he said, shrugging awkwardly in the middle of the air. "How bad are the arms?"

She winced just thinking about it. "Pretty bad," she admitted.

"Here, I'll give you a lift." He swished in front of her, and motioned her to hold onto his shoulders. "Ready?"

"Will it be too hard for you?" she asked.

He scoffed at her. "Don't make me laugh."

They shot back to the club much faster than they had going away from it. Violet realized that Liam had been holding back quite a bit. Either that or he was showing off.

"Liam," she asked, as they neared the building. "Have you ever heard of anyone going out of Still-time?"

He glanced up at her, shocked, only alerted back to flying when Violet shrieked about the tree in the middle of their path. He swerved so close, Violet's nose was whipped by one of the passing branches. "Look ahead of you when you wingband," she cried, rubbing her stinging nose.

"Sorry," he muttered. "But you can't pull something like that on me and not expect me to freak out. Here, let me land."

Violet wondered just how landing worked when the static electricity continuously pushed them up, but then noticed him twisting the wingbands on his wrist counter-clockwise. He settled gracefully down to the ground. When his feet touched down, Violet gave a little shriek as her own wingbands yanked her up again. That was getting tiresome. Impatiently, she twisted them like she had seem Liam do, but apparently did it too fast. She ended up falling from five feet in the air, to a crumbled mass on the floor.

An incomprehensible groan escaped her lips. "The pain!"

Liam knelt beside her, taking one of her arms and massaging the already forming black and blue marks from her skin. "Why did you ask me that?"

Violet gave him her best innocent, ignorant look. "My parents are Newheads, remember?"

He shook his head. "Not even a Newhead would think about crossing over," he argued.

"It was just a stupid question," she insisted. "It's not like I'm about to cross over. That would be crazy."

"Damn straight," he said, nodding. "The Mythics would kill you. They're even more dangerous, now that they're working together." Violet was mildly frightened by Liam's sudden intensity, and he instantly noticed her discomfort. "I'm not trying to scare you. It's just, I've never met a Newhead who's been brave enough to run away. You've been taking everything so smoothly. I just…" a blush heated up his cheeks, his mouth clamping shut.

Violet met his eyes, carefully. "You just what?" she pressed, when she realized he wouldn't continue. She had to seriously resist the urge to make face of pain as Liam continued to kneed the bruises from her arms. She knew this technique worked (she and Nyx did it to each other all the time, seeing as things always managed to break and smash into them, and sometimes they just didn't want to look like they were being abused.) It hurt like hell, though.

"I don't want anything to happen to you," he admitted, the red spreading from his cheeks down to his neck. "I've never met anyone like you, before. You're…" he struggled for the right word. "Strong."

Violet looked at him oddly. Her? Strong? She was the one who continued to sit back and take the abuse of her classmates rather than start a fight, who had been too much of a coward until now to figure out her powers, who nearly lost it at her first time leaching. Yeah, she was strong alright. She was freaking Wonder Woman. "You must not have met many decent girls, then," she said, thinking of all the amazing women she knew in Haven.

"Most girls here hate wingbanding, for one. They won't even try, since they know they're going to get bruised up." He winced at that thought, glancing down at the purpling arm in his hands. "Sorry about that, by the way. I should have warned you."

Violet, who was remembering having her soul ripped from her body and placed inside a freezing hell, gave a soft little laugh. "Trust me, I've had worse."

"Just promise me you won't try to do anything stupid. Don't try to leave Still-time. It's safe here."

Violet did not make a promise lightly. If she gave her word, nothing in the world could make her break it. As such, she could not make such a promise. She thought of Haven, and how she and Nyx ended up running away from it, for fear of what would happen in the night, where they were supposed to be safe. "Liam, if there's one thing I know from my life, I know that no where is ever as safe as you think."

With that, she reclaimed her arm and bolted for the door to the club. As she closed it, her new amethyst eyes darting around in the strange light-sucking world for anyone paying attention to her, she visualized her number line of time, and took it off of zero, replacing it back into positive.

Just as she felt the world shift around her again, like an old record that someone had finally pushed off a scratch, she caught the panicked glance of Liam, rushing through the door as she disappeared.

And the world came back alive.

She looked around through the laser lights, the pulsing bodies, the obnoxious noise (realized with a wash of annoyance that she could barely see anymore, since she had gotten the genius idea to take out her contacts in Still-time), and had only one thought.

She still had questions, many many questions, but she was beginning to see answers among them. She had to tell Nyx.

Where was she?

**Told you, didn't I? **

**I'm starting to have out-of-state book signings arranged. Any recomendations of cities, I am welcome to hear. We're trying to arrange NYC now. This makes me very happy inside. **


	18. Chapter 18 Betrayal

**Sorry for the wait. Normally I update on Saturdays, Sunday mornings at the very latest, but this chapter ended up being very difficult to plan. There's not a lot of action going on, but it's setting upthe action for the next chapter. I just couldn't rush it. **

**So one quick question before I shutup and let you read this. I know that a large percentage of the people who read this don't review (you should see the amount of hits I have for it. Either the people who have reviewed are reading it twenty times each, or there's people holding out on me). I need to know if I have any guys reading this. This story is supposed to be subjected to a wide age-group, for both girls and boys. If you're a guy and you're reading this, just give me a quick little review telling me you're reading it and its not leaning too much into the girl aspect of it... and I'm welcome to suggestions or corrections for the reactions of any of my characters. Shock as it is, I'm not a guy. I only interogate my guy friends to be able to write from the POV of one. **

**Okay, so maybe not so quick question. Get reading already:-D **

Chapter 18—Betrayal

Raphael Alverez had one slogan that he loved to tell himself whenever he looked at himself in the mirror, taking in his sharp, dangerous features and almost colorless eyes, and thinking of just how much is network had grown over the past years with the help of Eris.

_Damn, I'm good_.

And he was. There was just no denying it. He had hands everywhere. If someone cared to dig deep enough, they would be able to find traces of Raphael's involvement in anything. The bankruptcy of Enron; that was so his doing. Martha Stewart scandal? There's Rafey. The recent boom of popularity for bronzers and brown and gold eye shadow… well, though he wasn't quite as ready to admit to it, Eris had made him do it.

His regrets were few and far between, but if there was one that continued to bite him where it hurt, it was what he had done to Isabel. It wasn't so much guilt for hurting her (she turned out okay, after all), but that because of her mistrust, he couldn't get remotely close to Haven.

And he really wanted to. When he imagined all of the Mythics there, the amazing capabilities of their powers, he felt physical pain that he could do nothing to get closer. Sure, Eris was able to pick up a few stragglers who didn't fit into the boarding school environment, but it was only the teeniest percentage to the entire potential. And he never stood for anything besides one hundred percent.

From his apartment window, he could just make out the lights of the school, focused in the dorms and in the teachers' apartments. He sighed, forcing his mind away from those dangerous thoughts of taking over the school. That was too much. That was going too far.

A slight creak in the far corner suddenly had his nerves in a twist. He jumped, and twisted around, eyes searching the dim light for the source of the noise.

"Over here," came a soft voice, and a tall gangly teenager revealed himself from the shadows. He gave a little bow, nodding his head in the respect of one predator carefully sizing up another. "My name is Alexander Foxx, and I think I can be of some assistance to you."

Raphael sized him up carefully. Long tall and pale, with the most unusual amethyst eyes he had ever seen. He was definitely a Mythic. There was not even the shadow of a doubt niggling the back of his mind. The only question was what kind. "Are you from the school?" he asked, carefully, resisting the urge to ask the most harebrained question of 'who are you?' In the total battle between good and evil, names didn't much matter.

He nodded, carefully. "Yes, and I want to help you."

It did not take a long time for Raphael's limited patience to run out. Having the promise of the school by a mutinous teenager was just enough to send him over the edge. Eris's voice sounded in his head, rather annoyingly if he let the truth be known. _You're going too far. This is too much_.

He decided it was like being a recovering alcoholic, and someone offering him the rarest and finest liquor in the world. When he reacted, it was in the defensive sense of being too close to the edge, of wanting something so bad, but knowing it was the worst thing he could have. Sensing his trauma, a steel-beaked fury appeared in the room.

"Why should I expect help from someone willing to betray the people who helped you the most?" Raphael asked, his voice low in anger. The fury lunged for Alexander, who didn't look at all perturbed by its presence.

"You want Haven, and I want Haven closed. We are the perfect team," Alexander argued, lunging out of the way of the path of the dragon-like creature. Annoyed by its quarry's cleverness, it's stomped a scaly talon, the jet black claws ripping deep wounds into the honey maple flooring. Alexander didn't even blink.

"Get out of here," Raphael hissed, seething. His eyes flicked to the black fury, directing it to take Alexander's head off.

The strangest look passed over Alexander's eyes. It was not fear, it didn't even come close to worry or panic. If Raphael was any judge of expression (and he very much was—it came with the job description of global dominator), he could have sworn he saw exasperation on Alexander's face.

No sooner had the look left his face than he glared at the fury with all the intensity of a cobra ready to strike.

And the fury disappeared.

There was not much that Raphael hadn't seen, but when he saw his own fury being dismissed, his jaw dropped open. Here was a Mythic who might actually be more powerful than him. "You're a Controller?" he asked, carefully, suddenly much more aware of all of Alexander's subtle movements.

Alexander shook his head. "I'm different than Mythics," he said by way of explanation. In respect of Raphael's intelligence, this was really all the explanation he required. He would not continue to interrogate him for information when it was obvious he would say no more on the matter. There was more than one way to get answers, after all.

"What do you want?" he asked, finally, when he decided the shock of seeing his fury dismissed had evaporated enough for him to speak intelligently.

"The gates are all that keep you out of Haven, correct?" Alexander said, speaking quickly and carefully. Raphael understood this. There were times where information and action were almost instantaneous reactions of each other. If this was one of those times, he would not waste precious minutes with stupid questions. "All of the other tricks that the founders have incorporated, you can get past."

Raphael didn't even need to think about it. Out of all their Mythic powers, none would work on him. Mythic powers only worked on another Mythic when they were in form. If they were in form, Raphael would be able to Control them.

His only worry was the skills Isabel possessed beyond her powers. The only thing he couldn't get past was the gate. "I'm listening," Raphael said, slowly, making it clear that Alexander had his undivided attention.

"The gates are broken," Alexander said. "Dawn is still a couple of hours from now. It's time enough."

Without another word, he left, leaving Raphael a recovering alcoholic alone with the finest most intoxicating liquor of possibilities.

* * *

As Alexander left the apartment, nodding to the sleepy looking doorman as he walked out of the huge double doors and into the frigid air, he contemplated the next steps of his plan.

He knew Raphael would take the bait. That hungry look that gleamed in his cold eyes could not be mistaken for anything else. He was a power-hungry egotistical jerk. These traits could all be used.

It was not enough for Raphael to simply take the school, though. His mission was to close Haven, but he considered this mission basically scrubbed if he managed to take all the Mythic students from Haven and place them in the hands of an even more potentially threatening arrangement with Raphael's… well, whatever it was that Raphael did.

The goal was to _stop_ Mythics from becoming organized and working in groups. Not give them more power through a more political standpoint.

As Alexander walked, hunched against the cold, he debated calling the police on the school. They would be so freaked out at Haven, they would probably end up doing some crazy Mythic voodoo on the poor cop. Then the government would get involved, bring in the bigger guns…

Mentally, he played out the fight between trained government secret service agents and a school full of teenage, hormonal Mythics who were still learning to control their powers.

Secret Service didn't stand a chance.

He groaned out loud. Now amount of grunt power would come even close to wiping them out. There was simply too many who had worked together for too long, and new too well what to do under an attack.

There had to be a weakness in all of this, though. He tried to recall all of the little things that he had picked up from the school in the last few days. Well, the cafeteria food could bring the most famous world-renown chef to his knees. So what was he supposed to do? Gourmet them to death?

_Think, think, THINK, _he ordered himself. This was easier said than accomplished, seeing as he was freezing cold and still a long way off from the school. Not that the school would offer him any sanctuary at this point, but he figured that after he almost killed Nyx, she would be ready to go home. He had to intersect the two and somehow keep them away from Haven and to somewhere safe.

He recalled Nyx's face when he attacked her, split between fear and calculation, measuring and weighing her choices almost instantaneously. He remembered the way her eyes darted around, panicked, not looking for someone to help her, but making sure no one was looking at her. She had to make sure it was safe to change shape.

With that though, a sudden warm wash of inspiration flushed over his face and down his neck. Of course! How could he have not seen it before?

There was one weakness to Mythics, and that was that humans didn't know they existed. They went out of their way to make sure no humans knew what they were, to keep the true identity of the school hidden.

What would happen if everyone knew?

It would have to be fast. It would need to be while the school was still in shambles from Raphael's attack. That would be the only way to get enough people to witness the use of their powers, to get them to really believe.

He looked at his watch and swore. It was late. Real late. So late, it was might actually begin to be considered early. He knew whoever he ended up calling with this information would not be very happy. He figured the media would forgive him when he gave them the world's biggest story in the history of media.

The news never slept, after all.

**Dum dum dum...! Find out what happens next on next week's episode of Haven... **

**Guys, I'm going to ask you again. If you are of the male persuasion (take a moment to check if you're not sure) PLEASE leave a review. **

**Thankyou! **


	19. Chapter 19 The Walk

**I like this chapter. It shows the strength friends can have, even if they want to kill eachother. lol. **

**I'm going to start putting Haven into full gear. As Masked Dragonfly will tell you, I've stocked up on aleve and wrist braces, because I'm going to try to whip out a chapter a day. I'm probably not going to update every day (I do need to sleep), but I just felt like sharing my sudden drive to have this thing finished. **

Chapter 19—The Walk

Nyx wondered what it would be like to die. Right now, it didn't seem that bad. It was kind of like sleeping. If it was between dying and having to hang out in her hell again, she would completely take death over it.

Idly, she wondered where Violet was. She should have found her by now. But then, even if she did find her, there was no way she would be able to help her. It had taken immediate action from Epione to save all the other victims. At this point, Epione was quite a walk away, and probably dead tired from having to heal both Amanda and Jacob in the same day.

Yeah, she was screwed.

She reminded herself of her one little victory. Thirteens. Thirteen letter words. She was a freaking genius, if she allowed herself the praise. And since she was dying, she did.

"Nyx?"

She could have sworn that sounded like Violet's voice, sliding under the incessant dry drone of techno music. She tried to open her mouth to reply, but decided it was too much work.

"Nyx?"

There was a definite note of panic in Violet's voice now. She really should at least try to answer her. But as long as she didn't talk, it stayed nice and quiet in her head. Much different than everything outside of her head.

"There you are," Violet cried, finally seeing her friend in the corner.

There was one of those seconds in time that seems to slide the wrong way, where everything in that single moment is so wrong, that the brain refuses to accept that second as fact. Violet looked at Nyx, and saw scrawled sloppily across her cheek the word 'unimaginative'. It was as if a red hot pin had been stuck in her hand. She hissed in pain, jumping back a few steps and crouching low.

None of this actually sunk into Nyx's consciousness, though. All she could see was a pair of intensely staring amethyst eyes, registering the way the darted back and forth, even though it was clear she was focused completely on her.

There was a tense moment after that, where each sized up the other carefully, weighing their chances and choices. Nyx was certain she would choke on her own heart, while Violet kept grimacing at the sight of the thirteen letter word scrawled across her cheek.

Nyx finally broke the tense silence. "What happened to you?" she asked, not with concern, but with that special condescending sneer that only a true friend could give you.

"I could ask the same thing to you," Violet pointed out through gritted teeth. "Take that off your face. It's hurting me."

Eyes not leaving Violet's, Nyx tentatively wiped the word from her face. The only reminder of its criminal presence was a dark black smudge stretching from chin to cheekbone. When Nyx spoke, it was with much more serious, with a definite note of urgency. "Alexander did something to me. It was bad. I…" She paused a moment, realizing she should feel fear and panic and trauma. In all honesty, if she wasn't dead already, she should be going into shock.

There was none of that though. It was completely and entirely numb, as if, when Alexander had taken away that important thing that she knew she would miss, he stole her emotions.

"He took my feelings, my emotions," Nyx said, slowly, voicing her opinion out loud. She took another hard glance to Violet, noticing the subtle ways her body had changed in hardly more than an hour. Where her tall, lanky frame at once seemed awkward and gangly, Nyx now saw the poised frame of a praying mantis; each muscle tuned and taut, the slow movements belying the speed she knew was possible. "You did it too?"

An almost imperceptible blush of shame crept over her cheeks. "I had no choice."

Nyx shook her head, beginning to feel something like betrayal tearing away her heart. It wasn't real betrayal, though. The hurt of it was diluted, distant, as if it belonged to someone else. "There's always a choice." She wanted to get furiously angry at Violet. She wanted to feel like breaking her nose. All she could feel was distant, fuzzy rage. She resisted the unmistakable urge to close her eyes and take a nap.

Violet noticed her lack of reaction with a hint of panic. "How much did he take?" she asked. She made a face. While she wasn't entirely sure what happened to humans after they were leached on, she was sure it was some kind of taboo to feed off a Mythic. She had only leeched once and she felt this strange, unexplained aversion to Nyx. She was disgusted by her.

Nyx wanted to argue, to tell Violet to leave her the hell alone, to never speak to her, to stay away from Haven. While she had the desire for this, she didn't have the passion, the fire. "Too much. I don't feel right."

Violet remembered that every other time Alexander leeched a Mythic, it had required either Epione's gift of healing or the strange flower that Claire made. "We need to get you to the school."

Maybe it was because she had too much passion and energy for Alexander too fully take. Or perhaps Nyx was just so angry, it broke even the sleepy, empty confines of leeching. However it happened, Nyx felt the beautifully sweet toxin of rage bubble up from her stomach, spreading a warm, electric buzz through her body. "Don't you dare touch me." She couldn't scream or snarl, but at least she had the energy in her to resist.

Violet shook her head. "What are you talking about? You need one of the healers."

Nyx closed her eyes a moment, drinking in that wonderful fury for it was the only thing there. "Communication," she hissed, hardly finding the strength to figure out the thirteen letter word, the word not more than a whisper.

Violet jumped back, yelping in pain. "Stop that! I'm trying to help you!"

"Miscellaneous," she breathed, and this time, there was a note of pain in her own voice. She was getting very tired. She could feel darkness collecting at the hidden parts of her brain, waiting for her to let go of her rage and succumb.

"Nyx! I'm not going to hurt you! You have to get to the school."

She continued to utter those thirteen letter words that she had collected when attacked by Alexander. Her hands feeling like nothing more than lead...very fuzzy lead…she fingered at the laces of her trademark combat boots, pulling them out of the many grummets.

Here was the hard part. Still uttering thirteen letter words to keep Violet at bay, she wrapped one lace around each wrist, making it the exact tightness that it could around her wrist thirteen times. She fished the eyeliner back into her hand and replaced the word on her cheek, _unimaginative_.

"Nyx, you're dying! Stop being dumb!"

A trap. A trap. It was all a trap. She might be dying, but Nyx trusted her body. She knew it would fight until the very last second, perhaps giving her the chance she needed for salvation. Her body saw the strange amethyst eyes and freakily sure movements and told her not to trust whoever they belonged to.

Violet used to be her best friend. She wondered when that changed.

She knew she no longer trusted her.

"Nyx, I'm going to kill you!" Violet hissed in frustration.

_Of course you are,_ Nyx thought. _Why do you think I'm doing this?_

She closed her eyes a moment, feeling vaguely proud of herself for being able to keep her self so safe. Her eyelids popped back open not a moment later when she felt the world rush from under her, feeling a sharp, jagged shoulder digging into her stomach, an arm twist around her legs and behind her neck.

"Lemme go," Nyx slurred, her tongue feeling weirdly heavy in her mouth. She swatted Violet's face with her hand, but she ducked her head out of the way. Her knuckled ended up rapping her own forehead. Which kind of hurt. "Illustrations, illustrations, illustrations…"

She managed to hear over the insane pound of music, Violet's sharp intake of breath.

"Partica…" she made a face as her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth. She really wished it would stop doing that. "Participation, participation, participation…"

The freezing cold air that slapped them in the face as Violet carried her out of the club did a little bit to clear her head. She remembered the shoe laces on her wrists.

Her entire body had taken on that weird, fuzzy lead feeling. Annoying. She tried to figure out where her arms where in all of that mess, pressing her protected wrist against the bare skin on Violet's neck.

Violet let out a strangled cry of pain, stumbling a little under the weight of her friend and the pain of that stupid number. She refused to drop Nyx, though. She was able to feel the weird emptiness coming from her, and knew that if she didn't get help soon, she was as good as gone.

She cursed herself as she remembered that she forget to see the outcome of her experiment. She continued to deny to herself that she had, in fact, loved leeching. She told herself it was for the experiment, to see what happened to humans when she did it. Unfortunatley, that excuse was down the drain seeing as she forgot to check the outcome of her experiment. Had she hurt Tall-dark-and-handsome as much as Alexander hurt Nyx.

It was a disturbing thought.

If Violet thought the walk to the club was bad, going back was ten times worse. She still had the wingbands on, so she used them to speed up her progression, but her arms were already in agony from before, and Nyx didn't have any anti-gravity to hold her up. It was like doing a push up with someone sitting on her back.

And it was cold. She wished she hadn't forgotten to get her coat.

To top it all off, the wrenching agony in her arms and shoulders as they burned and shook against the weight that tried to force them down, the bitter, biting cold that pierced through her thin clothes like a knife… that was all seconded to the fact that Nyx had gotten smart. Even in her half delirious state, she was keen enough to continue to repeat thirteen letter words, each one feeling like being jabbed with a needle. Every so often, she would find the strength to move her wrist onto her bare-skin, and the thirteen banded shoelace was the equivalent of sticking her finger in an electrical socket. Not fun.

There are moments in anyone's life where time plays tricks on them. The days before a test could seem like mere seconds, while the hours before opening Christmas presents were years.

Violet was certain that this was worse than all of that. There were times when everything seemed to be going too fast, where she could feel Nyx's life slipping away, and she forced herself to move a little quicker, to beat the race between her and death.

There were other moments were every second stretched a millennium. Where Nyx would wrench herself from unconsciousness and start muttering those stupid thirteens again, where her arms felt ready to snap off from banking a turn too hard, and ending up swinging under the wingbands, fighting against all pain and defeat to bring her weight and the weight of her friend's back above them. When she was certain she was about to drop into hypothermic arrest as an icy blast of wind ripped her off course, and sent her spinning in the air, trying to hold onto Nyx with one bruised and agonized arm as she kept them aloft with the other.

She knew it would be much easier to simply let go. It occurred to her that even if she was able to get to the school, she would probably be too late. She knew by staying out in the bitter night, she was putting herself just as close to death as Nyx. If she let her go, she could fly to Haven faster, and save herself.

She gritted her teeth against the temptation. Nyx hated her now, she was sure of it, but she was still the closest friend she had. It would be easier for Violet to hate her back if she knew she hadn't left her to die.

As she clawed through the dorm window, tumbling into the sinfully warm room, Nyx in an unconscious mess on top of her, she was too exhausted to even feel relief. "Claire," she croaked, her voice raspy and harsh. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Claire."

A bedside lamp illuminated the usual darkness of the ungodly early morning. "Wuzzamatta?" Claire mumbled, drowsily. Around her, a few girls stirred, throwing their comforters over their heads to block the light, or grumbled a mild complaint about the noise.

Violet felt as if the cold from the night had sunk into her very bones. Her entire body shook with it. "I need you to make that flower again," she said through chattering teeth. "The red one you gave to Amanda and Jacob."

Blearily, she flicked her finger, and peaking through the open window was the same crimson bloom Violet had seen help Amanda and Jacob. She remembered from the morning, when Epione had said the flower had been doing just fine, she was just faster, and prayed that it wasn't too late.

She plucked off a petal and put it in Nyx's mouth. All she could do now was wait.

Claire lost interest in whatever they were doing, turning off her light and dropping back into bed. Violet crept over to her bed, pulling some more practical clothes out of her trunk, hiding the unsalvageable borrowed garment at the bottom. Her arms were excruciating; any time she moved them, she was sure they would break off. She didn't want to take the wingbands off quite yet, though. She hid them under a bulky hoodie, but remembered to wear a tank top underneath. She was pretty sure the static in the wingbands wouldn't work quite as well through thick clothing, and had a funny feeling that she would be taking off again, soon.

When she returned to Nyx, she theorized on seeing in the dark. Instantly, the room was illuminated in light visible only to her.

Nyx's coloration looked better, her muscles had stopped going into spasms, and the sweat was beginning to dry from her face as her temperature decreased. Violet sighed in relief, then went to hunt down a change of clothes for her friend, plopping them by the slowly healing Nyx, and dropping in exhaustion beside her.

Vaguely, she heard the sound of Nyx swallowing a few times, her breathing adjusting as she opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She moaned, bringing her hands to her head. "I feel like I was run over by a monster truck," she moaned, massaging her aching head.

"You too?" Violet asked, sardonically.

Nyx made a face, as her vague memory from the last hour filtered back to her. "Why'd you do it?"

Violet shrugged. "You're my friend, and that's what friends are supposed to do," she suggested, lamely.

Nyx shook her head as the threat of a cliché teenage moment threatened her. "I meant why did you do what Alexander did to me? I thought you didn't like hurting people."

Violet groaned at the thought of explaining everything that had happened in the last few hours and felt actual nausea. "It's a long story," she said. "I'll explain it to you on the way back to the club."

Nyx gave her a confused look, the nausea that Violet just felt doubling back on her. She was still feeling weak and shaky from Alexander's attack, and whatever Violet had done to get her here had left her with more than her fair share of bruises. Her nose was running, too.

She didn't believe it! She was actually getting a cold!

"What are you talking about?" Nyx groaned.

"There's just something I need to check." She giggled to herself, the exhausted kind of giggle that only comes when there is absolutely nothing funny. "I mean, someone."


	20. Chapter 20 Intruders

**I failed in my attempt to write a chaptera day, because this one took me two days. I think I can live with myself though, since this chapter is fourteen pages long, and basically all action scenes (which, I have discovered, is the second hardest thing for me to write, seconded only to transitional scenes--which this novel doesn't have because its all happening in a couple days). **

**But yeah, here is one of those great action chapters that end up cracking you up from the absurdity of it all. Well, it cracked me uo, anyway. **

**Enjoy! **

Chapter 20—Break In

"C-could you please take that stuff-ff off your f-face," Violet said, her teeth chattering so loud, it took Nyx a moment to translate what she said.

"Why do you think it bothers you, now?" Nyx asked, smudging away the word. The cold wasn't really bothering her, but she did find herself chilly. She guessed her powers could become just as exhausted as the rest of her. It was more the fact that her nose was running down her face, and an insistent burn was itching the back of her throat every time she swallowed.

Violet shrugged. "I don't know. I just know since I leeched, I can barely think… that number… without feeling like I want to throw up."

"Leeching?" Nyx said, trying the word out on her tongue. "Is that what it's called?" She thought about it a second, and then decided it was appropriate. "What about when I say one of the words?" she asked.

"It's like your sticking a pin in my skin," Violet explained. "I don't understand it."

Nyx shook her head, trying to figure it out. Thirteens had a bad reputation among Mythics. Everyone knew that even if a child had Mythic blood, he or she wouldn't take on the traits of their benefactor if they weren't born on the thirteenth. While she didn't mind so much being a Mythic, a lot of kids hated it, and hated the fact that couldn't have been born just a little bit earlier so they wouldn't have to deal with all the complications that existed when the gene was activated.

"Violet," Nyx said, slowly, an idea blossoming in her head. "What do you feel when you look at me?"

With her ability to see in the dark, Nyx was clearly able to see the blush heat up Violet's cheeks. "Disgust, mostly," she admitted. "Like you could give me a disease or something. I want to run away from you, and I get sick at the thought of touching you."

Nyx was not at all insulted by this statement, for she had expected just as much. "What if you can't stand the number thirteen…oh, sorry about that… that number because that's the number that creates us, Mythics?"

Violet shook her head, speeding up her pace as they neared the forest. "That should be genetic then. I should have felt this way ever since I came here. It only turned on after I leached, though."

Nyx closed her eyes, trying to string the random pieces of information together to form an intelligent hypothesis. It was a lot of information, though. Nosophorus were a potentially predatory creature who lived in a time where humans and Mythics were completely defenseless to any of their attacks. They had more advanced technology (the kind that would make Kim bubble with happiness), a government, a structured society and close to limitless powers. They hated Mythics, cold, drastic change and thirteens. They had different names for authoritative figures (Elders) and far-out thinkers (Newheads). "What if its one of those genes that turn on like us with that birthday. Leeching turns it on."

Violet shook her head. It just didn't seem right to her. That math just didn't add up. If something were genetic, like her blond hair or tall stature, there should be absolutely nothing she could do about it. No matter how many times she dyed her hair or slouched her shoulders, she would still be blond and tall.

This was different. While she recognized the repulsion she felt whenever she saw Nyx, there were times it was less strong as others, as if the strength of the gene was depleting.

And that was impossible.

"No," Violet said slowly. "I think it's something different. Almost like… a side effect of leaching. But then…not." She shook her head. "My brain hurts."

Nyx made a face at her. "My everything hurts."

Violet raised her eyebrows, then pushed the sleeve up on her coat, revealing intense purple bruises on her arms, mixed with bright red striations of veins from burst blood vessels. "Speak for yourself."

Nyx frowned at the injury. "Point well taken." She figured now might be a good time to thank Violet for carrying her all the way back to Haven, and apologizing for not trusting her and trying to kill her. She tried to figure out a way to voice it that wouldn't sound cheesy, but legitimately grateful, but it ended up being harder than figuring out the riddle of the Nosophorus.

Violet noticed Nyx's troubled expression with a barely perceptible grin. "'Thank you' will do just fine," she suggested, lightly.

Nyx scowled. "What, you're a mind reader, too?"

Violet smiled, saucily. "No, you're just transparent."

Nyx rolled her eyes. "Thank you for saving my life, even when I made it extremely difficult for you to do so," she said, in a bored, exasperated tone.

"You're very welcome," Violet replied, happily, skipping forward.

"Why do we have to go back to the club, again?" Nyx asked, biting back the urge to yawn, ignoring the fact that she had actually had a sappy moment.

"I want to see what happens to humans when they're leached on," Violet explained for the millionth time.

Nyx paused, leaning against a tree a moment, a yawn stretching her jaw. "Wh-who cares if he's hurt? Sounds like he deserved it."

Violet passed her friend an unpleasant look, then latched onto her wrist, sharing her anti-gravity with her to get them moving a little faster. A sudden sickening thought occurred to her, and she cursed out loud, hitting her head soundly with her fist.

"What was that for?" Nyx asked, giggling.

"I could have used my anti-gravity on you before," Violet groaned, thinking back on the moment and wishing she had been able to use her brain through all the unbearable agony she was enduring. Perhaps, if she managed that, she wouldn't still be enduring unbearable agony.

Nyx laughed, but was too tired to come up with a cutting retort. "Can we sit down for a second? Just for a second!" she continued when Violet hit her with a glare. "You can't tell me your legs don't feel like lead. Frozen lead."

Violet wanted to continue, but couldn't deny the fact of the matter. "Alright, five minutes. But it's probably not good to sit when it's so cold."

Nyx agreed, but as she sat, touched a pile of brush. Her touch made the least probable thing to happen the likeliest thing to occur, so the dead leaves caught fire. Violet could not resist a pathetic whimper as the flickering flame unfroze her fingers.

"This is some weird shit," Nyx commented, mildly, hugging her arms around her legs, resting her head on her knees. "You know that, right?"

Violet nodded, wondering when exactly it happened that her life spun so wildly out of control. She closed her eyes a moment, letting the warm crackle of the burning leaves lull her into a strange, toxic lullaby of nighttime, exhaustion and bruises.

Her eyes felt like they had been closed for barely a second, when a sharp, white-hot pain hit her cheek. She wrenched her body up with difficulty, detangling herself from Nyx. An incomprehensible garble of confusion came out of her mouth as she struggled to figure out where she was, and who had just slapped her.

"Violet, you have to come with me. We have to get off the grounds."

Violet pushed her glasses onto her forehead to rub her eyes. The fire had gone out, which was probably why she and Nyx had been huddled together. She wondered how long they had fallen asleep for. "Who're you?" she slurred, trying to jump start her foggy brain again.

"It's Alexander, you freak. Come on, get up!" He started tapping Nyx's cheek to rouse her. Violet, still to groggy to be afraid, felt oddly annoyed that he lightly tapped Nyx's face, while he had slapped her.

"I wasn't sleeping," Nyx garbled, sitting up straight in an effort to look alert, but blinking away the sleep from her eyes.

"Come on, we don't have time for this. Get up and come with me."

"Why should we?" Violet asked, her brain finally fixing the short-circuit that comes from waking up too fast in a strange environment.

A panicked look flooded Alexander's amethyst eyes. "I don't have time to explain. Just trust me."

Nyx was looking at Alexander with a deadly mixture of expressions on her face, varying from incredulity to fury. "Get out of here," she ordered, scrambling to her feet. "Don't come anywhere near us."

Alexander looked at her, a hurt expression in his eyes, but turned away to address Violet, who at least looked like she could hold off a little while before she killed him. "You crossed over into Still-time. You know what it's like."

Violet's lips were set in a thin, angry line. Her newly colored eyes were narrowed in rage. "You're trying to kill people. You tried to kill Nyx."

"It wasn't my fault," he argued.

"Are you saying it's mine!" Nyx shrieked, and Violet and Alexander hissed to silence her.

This time, when Alexander spoke, it was different. Violet recognized the look he was giving them as the feeling she had gotten after she had just leeched. Buzzy.

Alexander was about as buzzy as he could get.

"I told you once already, I don't have time to argue," Alexander said, slowly, sinking into his knees a little, his teeth barred in a frightening snarl that glittered in the moonlight. "You're both coming with me, if I have to drag you both by the hair to do it."

Both Nyx and Violet adopted fighting stances of their own, Violet reverting to an instinctual position with all her weight on her back leg, the front twisted perpendicular to her back, with only the lightest pressure on the ball of her foot. If Alexander stepped forward, he would find himself walking into her kick.

Nyx's powers, working a lot off her emotions, sensed her fear. Like when Alexander attacked her, her arms started to buzz and tingle with electricity, preparing to bring chaos and bad luck to anything she touched. She stretched her hands out to her sides, crouched low and chin tucked, ready to leap for Alexander.

"If you touch me," Nyx said, slow and soft. "I will rip out your throat. Do you understand?" There was not even a touch of fear in her voice. Only deadly seriousness.

The tense, choking silence was broken by a far away, blood curdling scream. Violet jumped at the sound, her eyes trailing back towards the school, trying to discern the source of the noise.

"What was that?" Violet asked Alexander, for she had a funny feeling he knew exactly what it was.

"That would be the sound of all hell breaking loose. Now, _come on!_" He grabbed their wrists, passing his anti-gravity to them so they were bounding through the forest like astronauts on the moon.

Neither of the girls were having any of this. Nyx was still new to the anti-gravity trick, she her legs felt too awkward and wild to do anything practical. She looked to Violet, expectantly.

Violet grinned. She had seen this in a movie once.

With all the force she could muster, she brought up her outside leg, and roundhouse kicked Alexander, aiming for his head. He was immediately knocked off balance, tumbling to the ground and releasing the girls' arms.

It took only a moment for them to find their feet again, bolting for each other and grabbing hands. Instantly, that floating astronaut feeling spread through them, thanks to Violet.

And they ran.

They weren't sure why they were running back to the school when they had just decided they had to get back to the club. They just knew that if Alexander wanted them to get off the grounds, God himself wouldn't be able to remove them from it.

"Wait, slow down," Violet whispered as they got out of the forest, fairly certain that Alexander was far behind. She didn't have any cool psychic powers like John, but in the immortal words of Peter Parker…

Her spidey senses were tingling.

She looked around, hidden by the large sweeping branches of an evergreen tree. Finally she saw it. Or them.

Just as carefully in the shadows as she and Nyx were men and women, dressed in black, carrying all kinds of weird gadgets on their belts. They were sharp and functional… frighteningly so. They didn't appear to need the walkie-talkies to communicate (though Nyx pointed out that they were still wearing head sets, probably to stay in contact with anyone in the building). A simple look and a nod, the subtle twitch of a finger or shake of the head seemed to relay volumes to them.

Violet felt a sudden, squirming guilt spread through her stomach. It had been she and Nyx who had broken the gate that protected them, and allowed the person who wanted to hurt them the most to see this weakness. "This is very bad," Violet breathed, softly.

Nyx nodded her agreement.

There was definitely something happening inside the school. Lights were turning on, and she heard the indistinct shouts of defense and sometimes pain. Violet was already shedding her coat and hoodie, ready to fly to the school to help.

This intention was promptly halted when the ear crushing wail of alarms jarred into her skull. She bit back the urge to yelp, covering her ears.

Then came the lights.

Both Nyx and Violet were able to see quite clearly in the dark. The only problem with seeing in the dark was that it made their eyes very sensitive to light. Where others felt a twinge of pain when a dark night was illuminated by dozens of stadium lights triggered by the alarm, Nyx and Violet felt sheer fire twist their retinas.

A scream of pain escaped them as they knuckled their eyes.

Violet clamped her mouth shut as a sickly feeling of dread hit her. She squinted her eyes to see the alert expression of the intruders. They shared a look, gave a curt nod to the tree they were hiding under, and two started walking forward.

"Oh, shit!" Violet swore. "Nyx, jump on my back."

Nyx followed direction without question for once in her life, jumping up on Violet's back, her arms clamped in front of her neck, legs propped up by Violet's arms.

There was one small problem with this, though. Violet's arms were in pain, the kind of pain that couldn't be fought against or ignored. When she slid her arms under Nyx's knees to push her up a little, her body completely revolted against itself, her arms refusing to work. How was she going to wingband?

"Go!" Nyx hissed, as the two came closer to their hideout.

Violet ran in the opposite direction, twisting the wingbands on. The electric charge through her arms as they read her charge and reversed it with the charge of the surface actually hurt, unlike the last two times she did it.

They were instantly pushed ten feet in the air as the charges kicked in. Unfortunately, they were still under the tree at this point, so they ended up being whipped and beaten by the passing branches on the way up.

"Right!" Nyx screamed, daring a look above her. Without question, Violet lurched to the right, narrowly avoiding slamming into a hefty branch. "Left!" Nyx screeched, hitting Violet's left shoulder repeatedly in her panic. Violet dipped her left arm down and twisted in that direction. "No, more left! More! More! More!" She hit her shoulder every time she said 'more'.

Violet blamed this as the reason her left arm decided to spasm at that exact moment, but she knew it was bound to happen anyway. It just sucked that it happened as they were being propelled upwards under a tree.

As her left arm seized, it knocked them completely asunder. Nyx shrieked, seeing the steady wooden arm of the branch not a nanosecond away, and knowing they were going at enough speed that when they hit it, since she would get the brunt of the force, she would probably break her spine.

She closed her eyes, in panic, taking in every last feature of this moment since it was probably going to be her last. The wail of the alarms, the blaring lights biting through her closed eyelids, Violet screaming in panic, the curt conversation of their attackers below, planning how to get them down…

"Violet, turn off the wingbands!" came a voice from above them. Was it God?

She looked up, and saw a pale white silhouette easily balancing on the branch ready to impale them. Nope, just Alexander.

Alexander swung from the branch like a monkey, and just as they were about to hit, kicked Violet hard enough forward that she whizzed out of harm's way of the branches.

The combined momentum of the wingbands pushing them upwards and Alexander kicking them like out was like a soccer ball that was kicked at the wrong angle, leaving it spinning in place rather than moving forward.

Just past the snares of the branches, Violet and Nyx spun around in a few dizzying circles, Violet still screaming her head off and Nyx holding on for dear life. When the spinning stopped, they were left hanging, Nyx clinging to Violet's shoulders with slipping grip.

"There!" came an icy female voice from below. They glanced down and saw something that looked suspiciously like a gun pointed in their direction.

Nyx made a face. Couldn't they go five _minutes_ without being in danger? "Come_ on_!" she cried, exasperated with their luck.

Alexander deftly maneuvered around the branches so they could see him. Violet had a look of intense pain on her face (this probably had something to do with the fact that she was hanging and trying to pull both herself and Nyx back above the wingbands), and Nyx had a priceless look of frustration and exasperation on her face as she looked down at the tranquilizer gun pointed in their direction. Of course, they didn't know it was tranquilizer.

"Violet! Turn off the wingbands!" he repeated.

Violet was struck with an amusing thought that if P.E was like this, she might actually be able to do a pull up. Since it wasn't, she still couldn't do a pull up. She had been doing them all night and now, her arms just wouldn't listen.

She heard the click of a gun being readied to fire. She screwed her face up, kicking her legs as she tried to pull herself and Nyx up. "Violet," Nyx cried, worriedly, seeing each of the intruder's aim at their target.

"Violet!" Alexander yelled from the tree.

Violet groaned, thinking about changing her name. She pulled on arm from the sky and twisted the wingband off, then repeated it on her other arm.

At the very same moment, the intruders pulled the trigger. As Nyx and Violet fell, the darts of tranquilizer whizzed harmlessly over their heads. Violet cheered a little, happy for her victory.

"Violet!" Nyx yelped, puncturing her miniature euphoria. Violet looked down. Oh yeah, here was a problem. The ground was about to hit them. "Turn on the wingbands! Turn them on! Turn them on!"

Violet fumbled for her wrists, twisting the wingbands in a panic. She was wrenched upwards again, this time remembering to keep her arms in front of her so she didn't end up hanging.

"Go! Go! Go!" Nyx cried.

Violet started flapping, heading for school once more, an idea forming in her brain. That's when she noticed an irritating, high pitched beeping that interrupted all the resounding sounds of utter-chaos. "What is that?" she asked, flying as fast as she could.

Nyx frowned, looking at the black bands on her friends arms. "Uh… Violet, what does the red light mean?" she asked. She wasn't very technologically savvy, but she knew red lights on technology was always a very bad thing.

"What red light?" Violet asked.

Nyx was never given the chance to reply for they suddenly dropped from the sky, once more plummeting to the ground. Nyx understood what the red light meant.

Their wingbands were out of juice.

She wondered if wingband batteries were rechargeable, or if they even had batteries. Then she decided she shouldn't be thinking about that since they were about to hit the ground. She gladly joined Violet in her panicked screaming.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

Just when they were sure there was no way they would luck out of this, that there future would be scream, scream, kersplat and dead, something hard and angular hit them from the side, wrapping skinny arms around them both and letting out a mild oath of pain.

The world shifted.

When Violet and Nyx opened their eyes, they were floating softly to the ground that was no longer cold, looking at the frozen forms of their attackers running towards them, Alexander still holding on to them tightly.

There was a soft whoosh of displaced air as they hit the ground. Violet detangled herself quickly, helping Nyx up just as fast. She stared at Alexander, a look of complete shock in her eyes.

"What have you done?" she whispered, pushing her glasses onto the top of her head (though her arms nearly broke in the process).

"I saved your lives," Alexander said, tersely.

Violet shook her head, tears stinging her eyes from stress and exhaustion and trauma and all she really wanted to do right now was sleep for about a million years. "You just brought a Mythic into Still-time."

"Uh… Violet," Nyx said, her voice shaking a little in fear. "I can't see."


	21. Chapter 21 War

**My laptop was being a major butt for the weekend, and wouldn't let me type anything on Microsoft. So, instead of working on Haven like I should have, I ended up fighting with my computer for all of Sunday and most of Monday. **

**After a long, grueling battle, I havetriumphed as the victor. Mwaha! **

**This chapter is a bit lengthy, but I got a little lazy in the end. Yes, I know it doesn't really describe the action of the characters, but do you realize how many charactersI have? To describe what each of them are doing for an entire scene... well, let's just say I'm not good enough for that, yet. **

**This chapter does give a big, fat juicy hint on what a Nosophorus is. **

Chapter 21— War

Isabel wondered how long it was supposed to be before life stopped hurting. Back when she was a new Mythic, every moment in the day was agony. It was doing what Raphael said, and if she dared question, thinking through the quickest way to not get hurt. To not let anyone she cared for get hurt.

When she found the rest of the founders—Raven, John and David—she was sure that that pain was going to end. Surely, when she was watched out for, loved and no longer alone, it meant that there was finally going to be some kind of reprieve in her life.

How wrong she had been.

Everyone told her she had to move on, to stop thinking about David. This was impossible to her, though. She had seen David shot, saw his blood, saw his quick, unceremonious passing. She knew he was dead.

She also knew that she had been given the chance to bring him back. It would have been so easy. Had one of her snakes bitten him, he would be alive.

A jet-black snake hissed his complaint. "_If we bit him, he would not be alive like you remember,_" he explained, for perhaps the millionth time.

Yes, but he would still be alive.

She sighed, turning a little under her covers, still too wired from the day to even think about sleep. Tyler, that lucky bastard, was already fast asleep, breathing lightly in her ear. She hadn't wanted him to sleep with her tonight, but didn't want to argue anymore.

She compared Tyler to David. She knew she shouldn't. It wasn't fair. David was her everything—kind, compassionate and protective with a kind of evil genius mind that had saved them countless times. Tyler could never be that to her. Tyler hadn't known her when she had been weak and broken. He expected no less than her cool, controlled exterior.

She closed her eyes a moment, thinking about him, about David. When he had first died, she would lay awake at night for hours, never sleeping, hardly ever closing her eyes, and just continued replaying the short amount of time they had together.

She stayed as still as possible, holding her breath, and with it those little precious moments, revisited a hundred times, worn and used like an old favorite shirt. She could swear, at a time like this, in the darkness where harsh reality wasn't quite as distinct, she could feel him near. As if he was in this very room, lightly caressing her face.

She felt something in her break, move aside. Her eyes snapped open, shooting straight up in fear and confusion.

"Shh…" came a soft, gentle hiss. "It's okay. I'm here."

Isabel smiled, softly, her eyes closing once more as she remembered that voice. She had heard it before, replayed it so many times in her head…

Then she felt something be taking away from her, something crucial and important. She could still feel hands on her face, drawing away that something, that something that she needed.

She wrenched her eyes open once more, and met cold amethyst eyes of someone painfully, gut-wrenchingly familiar. "David," she breathed, her heart choking her throat.

He shook his head, lightly brushing her lips with his own. Again came that feeling of something being drawn out of her, stolen and horded. "No," he whispered his voice just as she remembered, except now slathered in something dark and dangerous. "Not anymore."

She screamed.

It was such a scream, such a blood curdling, teeth-grinding scream, that Isabel swore she could still hear it reverberating in her skull even after she fainted.

* * *

Amanda's eyes opened up with a start. She wasn't sure what had woken her up, why her heart was beating so loud and her breath coming so fast. She squinted in the darkness, trying to discern the time.

Movement near the door made her suddenly freeze, laying back down again to feign sleep. She opened an eye to see who it was. She hoped it was Violet. While she couldn't do any lasting damage to her, she could still mess with her head.

She realized what had woken her up, though. Her Mythic shape was Brizo, the beautiful charmer and shape-shifter. She had a certain affinity with men, was able to sense their likes and dislikes to charm them more.

There was a guy in their room.

She turned her head and met the eyes of the techno-witch Kim. There was a look of fear in her eyes. "Gun," she mouthed, slowly and clearly. She made the hand gesture of a shooting device, just in case Amanda couldn't see her.

Amanda's first instinct was to jump up and run, but she resisted the urge. Though Kim had probably already disabled all of his harmful technology, that didn't make him any less dangerous. If he was a Mythic, this fight wouldn't be nearly as evenly matched.

She looked at Kim and mouth a request. "Distraction?"

Kim nodded, closing her eyes to concentrate.

The room was suddenly illuminated with light, the alarms from outside shrieking and wailing. To the intruder's defense, he didn't even jump in surprise, but his attention was diverted for crucial seconds as all the girls in the dorm all woke up.

"What the hell!" Hannah shrieked, angry for being awoken so rudely, her razor sharp nails growing in her anger. Her eyes darted around, taking in the frazzled appearance of her roommates, and then the poised man, dressed all in black, reaching smoothly for his rifle.

Barely even thinking beyond the here and now, she ripped the covers off her legs and leaped for the man, knife sharp nails barred forward. He glanced over, lazily, a bored expression on his face.

As Hannah came close enough, he twisted out of the way of her lethal hands, grabbing her wrist and shoving her own fingers into her shoulder.

The scrambling noise of confusion and panic suddenly stopped. Even the wail of the alarm seemed from far away. All the girls stared in shock and horror, as Hannah slowly peeled her fingers out of her shoulder, a look of cruel surprise on her face.

The man was not at all troubled by this sudden silence. He smoothly readied his gun and shot Hannah. All that came was a harmless click.

This broke the stunned silence enough for the dorm to rush into action. Julia threw her blankets to the side, and in one smooth motion shifted into a beautifully lethal tiger, her favorite battle shape. She roared.

The attacker had already twisted his gun, taking a strange, syringe-like dart from the inside. With quick reflexes that Hannah had no chance of dodging, the dart was plunged into her skin, just above her collar bone.

Julia leaped up, lunging for the attacker. Skilled and freakishly trained he might be, he did not stand a chance against the brute, instinctual force of Julia's animal forms. Viciously, she lunged for his face nails and teeth barred, snarling deep from the back of her throat.

Claire used this moment of distraction to use her own gifts. She took a quick glance at the honey oak hardwood floor, fleetingly debating whether it had enough life in it to grow again.

There was only one way to find out.

She closed her eyes, seeking for that one elusive desire to grow that was contained in even the oldest, most processed piece of wood. There! The tiniest green glow in all the crinkly laminated deadness.

As the attacker struggled to get the massive body of a snarling tiger off him, doing his best to protect his face from the massive, claw wreathed paws, the hardwood floor beneath him sprung to life, twisting and writhing beneath him as fast and violent as the ocean in the middle of a hurricane. The unconscious and bleeding Hannah, rolled safely out of the way, where Amanda pulled her up onto her bed.

"Claire, what do you do for bleeding?" Kim asked, pulling the dart from Hannah's throat.

"Stop it," Claire suggested, twisting off her bed and hitting the writhing ground when a dart was clumsily thrown in her direction.

"Julia get off him," Amanda ordered, pushing herself up onto the precariously balancing floor. "Claire, can you use this wood to bind him?"

Like as curved and graceful as an ocean wave, a splash of wood wound itself around him. The floor then went back to its original solidity, their intruder carefully trapped within it.

Amanda stepped forward, and as she did so, allowed herself to shift into her Mythic form. Brizo, the beautiful charmer. She didn't have quite the capabilities that Aphrodite had (she had graduated last year, one of the few Mythics Amanda actually felt rivaled against), she had the added bonus of shape-shifting. Let's see Aphrodite do that.

As she knelt gracefully in front of him, she felt that familiar sensation at the back of her mind as her powers instinctively read what kind of woman he wanted most, giving her the advantage she needed to charm the answers from him.

"Who are you," she whispered, lifting his chin up with the barest brush of fingertips, each word wreathed with a delicate, fragile chime, but still heard clearly over the insistent wail of the alarms.

He looked at her steadily, shaking his head as if her attempts for information amused him. As is she were an ignorant child.

She'd show him how despicably wrong he was.

She laced more vulnerability into her subtle motions, peppering her words with careful innocence and timid fear. He wanted to feel in control, protecting her from the world, like a princess locked in a tower. "Who do you work for?"

And this time, there was no resisting her voice, poisoned with want and need, backed with the quiet intensity of the pristinely pale green of her fathomless eyes. "Raphael Alverez," he breathed, knowing he was being played by their clever Mythic tricks, but desiring nothing more to steal this creature away and protect her.

The feeling shattered not a moment later, when she stood up, dropping the innocent and fragile façade like a coat. She turned to look at the other girls in the dorm, her voice strong and powerful. "We have to get out of here," she said, with all sureness.

The powerful orange tiger shifted, to reveal a frazzled, but wild looking girl. "I'm not leaving without Mike," Julia stated, flatly.

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Do what you want," she said, cruelly. "I assure you, though, Raphael is no friend of ours. If you stay here, you're his."

Julia shook her head, jaw set in an angry, determined line. "I'm not leaving him."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. Everyone who wants to live, follow me."

Just like the Splat game, a fissure appeared among the girls. Amanda and Claire on one side, Hannah balanced precariously between their arms, and Julia and Kim on the other. Claire gave a soft, apologetic smile. "See you around," she muttered.

"No, probably not," Amanda clipped. "Let's go."

They left. Julia looked at Kim. "You can go with them, you know. I don't expect you to stick around."

Kim shook her head. "Amanda's a survivor. She's doing what's right by her."

"And you?"

A hardened look appeared in Kim's eyes. "This is my school. If someone wants it, they're not getting it without a fight." She shifted into her second shape, the change both subtle and extreme at the same time. Her arms were wreathed in electricity, tiny bolts of lightning leaping through the thick strands of hair. Her once almond brown eyes had turned the color of freshly polished sterling silver, near glowing against the white of her eyes. "This means war."

Julia changed too, turning from a warm-hearted, compassionate teenager to a wild and untamed huntress. Artemis lived. "Let's go."

* * *

Eris Solomon had finally put on her pajamas. There was this kind of symbolic release that came with putting on pajamas. It meant the day was over. No matter how unusual or extreme the day was, when she put on her pajamas, she was officially that much closer to tomorrow. And tomorrow possessed the endless possibilities of everything. It could be better, or perhaps even worse, but it would never be today.

Yes, Eris was in her pajamas.

She leaned on the sill of her window, pressing her forehead to the cold glass, watching absently as her breath fogged up on the cool panes. As she stared, absently, her heart gave a funny little start when she saw the grounds weren't as empty as she thought. She peered closer, clearing away the moisture from the glass with a half-flick of her hand. It seemed like the strictly enforced curfew wasn't as impossible to break as the founders' liked to think.

Her brain hit a short-circuit when she saw the motions the kids were making. She recognized them as the strictly functional body-code Raphael trained all his agents with. Since Eris was kind of special among Raphael's agents, she wasn't as well-versed in it. She picked up some signals though.

_Move in. _

_Quiet! _

_Capture only. No one gets hurt. _

"Rafe, you bastard," Eris swore under her breath, running away from the window and diving over her bed to get her cell phone on the bedside table. Rafe was number one on her speed dial. She called him a lot.

The phone rang once, twice, and then came his voice. "This is Raphael," he said, cool and curt. Eris bit back the instinct to remind him that a simple 'Hello?' worked just as well.

"Call them off," she said, immediately.

"Hello, love," Raphael continued, amiably, ignoring her statement. "How's school life?"

Eris chomped her lower lip to resist the urge to scream at him. It was a hard thing. "Raphael, you sent trained and deadly agents into this school to capture and confiscate these Mythics. I don't know how you got past the defenses, hell, I don't even know how you got them through the gate. I do know that you're about to call them off."

"Why?" Raphael asked, pertly.

"It's going too far," Eris quipped into the phone, her voice clipped with suppressed anger.

There was silence from the other line for a while, and Eris hardly dared to breathe, knowing Raphael was carefully considering it. "You know," Raphael said softly, several excruciating seconds later. "You say that to me a lot. 'It's too far.' It makes me wonder what side you're on."

"I'm on no one's side," Eris hissed. "I'm never one anyone's side. I'm here to make sure none of you go too far."

"There you go with that too far thing again," Raphael quipped, playfully. Eris was reminded of when she had first met him, and she knew he knew something she didn't. And though he would never even hint to what it was, he would always wave that little piece of the unknown in front of her, taunting her. This never really changed for him; it was just the way he was. But Eris had become used to being in on the secret. "But for once Eris, I think going too far is going just far enough."

The line went dead.

Eris gave a scream of frustration and threw her phone down. She took a few deep breaths, then picked up the phone again, pressing one.

It rang, again and again and again…

"Come on, Rafe," Eris whispered into the cell. "Answer it."

He didn't.

She let out a mild oath of anger, dropping the phone and stuffing her arms and head into a sweatshirt. She had work to do.

* * *

The head agent in this mission was a Mythic by the name of Hephaestus. In Greek Mythology, Hephaestus was a blacksmith to the gods, making the lightning bolts for Zeus himself. Marcus might not have any one on one interviews with the king of the gods, but he did have a rather convenient gift to mold and control forms of metal.

The antennae in his ear hissed as one of his agents tried to communicate with him. He cleared the channel with nothing but a flick of a finger in the direction of his headpiece. "Go," he ordered.

"Too many, too powerful."

"Divide and conquer," he snapped. It was kind of obvious, after all.

"Trained to work together."

He swore under his breath, weighing his odds. When Raphael gave him his orders, he said he wanted as many Mythics from the school as physically possible. Coming back empty handed would mean bad things for him, but it was also an insufferable wound to his pride to be beaten by a couple of kids. "Tranq and tank as many as possible. No less than five. Head-one out."

He cut the transmission, cursing. Good help was just impossible to find nowadays.

* * *

Mythics of the school were constantly taught and impressed upon to learn how to use their powers, and to learn how to combine their own gifts with that of their peers. Surprise attack or no, these lessons were repeated so many times, they were part of second nature. It had become basic instinct to fight back.

Instinct or not, these were still powerful and deadly agents, many of whom were Mythics themselves. They put up a fight with all their might, student, teacher, founder and guests all resisting the intrusion as one.

It was the agents who retreated first.

In tow, they had five Mythics.

Mike, who was still too weak to fight back. Julia, who had latched herself onto Mike as a flea hidden in his hair. Brian, who had been cleverly captured in a bottle when he had turned into water. Hannah, who had been dropped by Amanda and Claire during their escape.

And finally, they had a certain blue-haired demon in the making, her skin shifting in and out of colors behind her, matching whatever was around her to make her as good as invisible. Rafey was going to pay for this.

After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

**Admittably not my best chapter, but I've gotta tell you... it was just too much of a butt to continue. I liked the first part with Isabel, and then the part in the girl's dorm. After that it's basically downhill for me, but I'll just shutup and let you be the judge. **


	22. Chapter 22 Answers

**Oh the pain! I wrote this chapter and _I _barely understand it. If you can swallow all of this, power to ya', but it really is the biggest information dump I've ever written. It was necessary (I had to start giving you the answers eventually), but in the immortal words of Alexander...**

**"This is the problem with searching for all the right answers. It inevitably only leads to more questions."**

Chapter 21— Answers

Violet decided that life should come with an instruction manual. Take her wingbands for example. She really wished someone had thought to inform her that it was in her best interest to charge the wingbands by stacking them together after every other use.

Violet grabbed Nyx's wrist, and spun through her mathematical theory to return back to Mythic-time. Instead of feeling that strange, shuddering shift as she jump-started time once more, all that came to her was emptiness. It was like sucking the last of a milkshake through a straw, never getting a full mouthful, just a bunch of tempting flecks of chocolate on her tongue.

Alexander smirked at her. This angered Violet. "What are you doing?" she accused, knowing for sure it was his fault that she couldn't shift back.

Alexander splayed his palms out in a motion of innocence. "Nothing," he stated. "But think of how long you've been awake, how much you have pushed your body and used your powers."

Nyx's grip on Violet's arm was quite painful. Violet was able to understand why she couldn't see. Violet and Alexander had different eyes than she did, designed to see in a time standstill where light was sucked up and absorbed. Nyx could see in any form of light, but she was blind in no light at all.

She was surprised when, from Nyx's touch on the bare, bruised skin of her arm, she could taste her bitter-sweet fear. She found herself closing her eyes and probing deeper, and found that Nyx was actually afraid of the dark.

_Stop it_, she ordered herself, harshly. She had had enough of being buzzy, no matter how unexplainably luscious and dominating it was, and she especially wasn't going to leech off her best friend when she had barely just healed from the last time. She had to control herself. "You're saying," she said to Alexander when she finally felt herself concentrated enough to speak. "That I can't do anything because I'm exhausted?"

"That's right," Alexander replied, more than a little hint of smugness in his voice.

Ignoring Nyx's frightened little squeak of fright, Violet pried her arm from her grasp, and slammed her hand onto Alexander's throat. She thanked her mind-numbing exhaustion for her bravery. She knew for a fact there was no way she would be this in-control and dangerous if she were not close to delirious from fatigue.

Alexander choked as her fingers closed around his throat. He tried to remove it, scratching and pinching her wrist, trying to knock her arm away with his, but she was holding on like a dog on its favorite toy. "Take us back," she ordered, her voice low and dangerous.

Alexander tucked his chin a little, which gave his trachea a little more room to suck in oxygen. "Can't," he gasped.

"No, I really think you can," Violet hissed.

Alexander shook his head as best as he could under her grip. "I'm spent, too. Go ahead and feel it."

As soon as he said it, Violet did feel that same mindlessly grappling, have to get those last few drops of elusive chocolate milkshake feeling coming from Alexander. He had used his last bit of strength to take them to Still-time. She released him, still furious.

"I want answers," Violet said.

Alexander bowed his head in submission. "You'll get them" he promised. "But right now, we have other things to worry about." He looked pointedly at Nyx whose heart was stuttering and flying at the quick, uneven rate of someone about to go into a panic attack.

"Knock her out," Alexander said.

Violet glared, furiously.

"If you don't, I will," Alexander warned. "She's about to lose it. It will be easier to take in when she wakes up."

Violet seriously doubted that. "Okay, Nyx, you hear me right?"

Nyx nodded. "Violet, at this point, you can do whatever you want. Wake me up when I can see."

Violet was pretty sure that she'd wake long before they were out of Still-time, but conceded. Pressing a hand against her face, she pulled up those last elusive flecks of chocolate milkshake with a certain sense of purpose, spinning a theory of sleep through her brain.

When she felt Nyx collapse, Violet opened her eyes, only to find the world swimming in front of her. She let out the garbled excuse for a raw swear in Alexander's direction, wishing once more for an instruction manual for life.

Apparently, you weren't supposed to actually use those last bits of power. Apparently, they were hard to scoop up for a reason. She actually needed them.

Darn.

She caught Alexander's apologetic smile as her vision dimmed, and he caught her before she collapsed on top of Nyx. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of you."

Somehow, she didn't believe that.

Now Alexander was faced with a problem. Though he was fairly certain there would be no other Nosophorus in the area (they were, after all, on the grounds to a school full of Mythics), he had to get them off the school grounds and to somewhere more hidden, that hopefully Violet wouldn't be quite as comfortable in.

It was an undeniable problem that Violet was able to shift in and out of Still-time herself. Alexander had only been given the gift temporarily by the Elders, for help with his mission. He didn't understand how she had done it, but knew that he would need to take them somewhere she wasn't fully comfortable, so that she wouldn't just shift out of Still-time when she woke up.

Then there was the added complication that he was one person who had to somehow figure out how to carry both of these girls, without the use of his powers. He flopped onto the ground, miserably, well aware that he was basically screwed.

He looked over at the immobile agent, gun still trained in their direction, and made a face at him. "This is all your fault, you know," he told him, glad to be able to pin the blame on someone else.

"Who's there?" came a startled, frightened voice.

Alexander looked up in surprise, panic growing through his stomach. He swore under his breath, and gave a quick glance to Nyx. Definitely not a Nosophorus, and there was no way she would ever pass for one. Unconscious, she could almost pass as a delicate, sweet human, though. Almost.

From behind one of the trees appeared a boy his own age. He looked kind of familiar, like the friend of a friend that tags along with a big group going to a party. You know you should know his name, but it eluded you after the fun of the party. "What are you doing here?" the boy asked.

Alexander raised his eyebrows, quizzically. "I have clearance to be here," he said. Almost the truth, after all. The Elders never specified whether his clearance to remain at Haven stretched back into Still-time or not. "Who are you?"

"Who gave you clearance?" the boy asked, ignoring his question.

"The same people who always give clearance for big excursions that I'm sure you didn't attain. The Elders," he added, when he was hit with a blank look. "Who are you?" he asked, once more.

"The name's Liam," he said, as if this were a challenge. Alexander noticed his lack of shirt and the three red marks across each arm and knew he had wingbanded here. He wondered where he had them charging. "Who're they?" he pointed to the unconscious lumps at his feet, that were clearly part of their world, for their coloration wasn't strange and blank anymore. His eyes widened when Violet stirred a little, her platinum hair falling out of her face and revealing her features. "Violet?" he gasped, shocked. He glared at Alexander. "What did you do to her?"

Alexander raised his hands in a familiar gesture of peace. "Nothing, she was exhausted and passed out."

Liam walked forward a few steps, grabbing his shirt front and pulling him forward roughly. "Tell me the truth," he hissed, his voice a low growl. Alexander resisted the urge to swear. This guy had just leeched. If they came to blows, Alexander wouldn't stand a chance. The buzz from Nyx had long since worn off amongst the cold and the emotional roller-coaster he had been on.

He did his best to pry himself loose from Liam's grip. "Look, you care about Violet?" That was one of the problems with Nosophorus. Because leeching made them so hard-edged and predatorial, enhancing their sense of touch to an extreme (one of the reasons they were so intolerant of pain), everything went fast. It was not uncommon for a couple to become pair-tied after only a couple weeks of courtship. Leeching numbed their sense of fear, so no one was ever afraid to take a chance and fall in love. Even if it hurt later, they could just drown their sorrows in a binge leeching and find the next partner.

Liam nodded his reply, but did not lose that hard edge from his eyes.

"Then I need your help. I have to get these two to my house, but I'm completely spent. See?" He brushed his fingers lightly on Liam's wrist, not long enough to be inappropriate (Nosophorus hated unnecessary touch), but long enough for him to sense his lack of powers. "Will you help me?"

He jerked his head in the direction of the curvy, raven-haired Nyx. "She's not one of us."

If Liam touched her, he would immediately know she wasn't human. He was fairly certain that no amount of instinctive passion for Violet could save them if he knew Nyx was a Mythic. "It's a long story. I'll take her, you take Violet. Do you have wingbands?" Stupid question. Of course he had wingbands.

"Yeah, you?"

Alexander made a face. He had stacked Violet's after she passed out, but they needed a few minutes to charge, and Violet had used them to dead. "Can I borrow one?"

They quickly determined that Liam was the stronger flyer, so he would be left with only two wingbands on his shoulders, while Alexander would take the wrist and forearm ones.

As Alexander twisted his on, grunting under the weight of Nyx and how astronomically more difficult it was to fly with only four wingbands, he had only one thought.

This was going to be a very long flight.

"So let me get this straight," Liam said almost amiably, completely at ease in the sky, with only two wingbands and Violet on his back. "Your mission for the Elders was to close that school, where you found Violet and saved her from the Mythics, and then that girl, what was her name?"

"Nicole," Alexander replied, remembering from a passing conversation with John Nyx's birth name.

"Nicole found out what we are from Violet, so now you're _protecting_ her. Do I have that about right?"

Alexander made a face that he hoped Liam interpreted as being a terrible wingbander, and not self-disgust for his clumsy lie. He was certain that if Nyx was awake, she could think of a much smoother reason for her presence that was completely without the threat of having holes punched in it. "If I left her there, she would have blabbed to the world what we are."

Liam gave him a narrowed, critical look. "And why would that matter if we're all in Still-time?"

Alexander groaned at his astute observation. He was beginning to tire of people smart enough to add two plus two. All of his old friends just took it for granted that it was four, without ever bothering to add it up for themselves. "Look, I was panicked, okay? What was your mission for the Elders? Borrow a cup of sugar from the neighbors?"

"Actually, I had to leech off some model named after a city. What was it, Milan, London…?"

"Paris?" Alexander suggested, remembering the name from one of the magazines in the common area.

"That's the one! Paris something-or-other."

Alexander raised his eyebrows dubiously, briefly debating why the Elders had put him with such an important task. Every Nosophorus had to complete at least one task for the Elders; it was kind of like the mandatory years in a military service that some countries required. The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed, though. Why would they put him, a young Nosophorus who had never done anything besides have fun with his friends in charge of such an important task? Why wasn't his task something as frivolous as Liam's, making him think he was doing something important without actually endangering any part of their society? "How was she?" Alexander asked, finally, when he realized Liam was waiting for a reply.

He made an incomprehensible sound, a kind of ho-hum boring hum. "She was pretty shallow, actually, all sugar and candy without anything really…" he struggled for the word.

"Sustainable?" Alexander suggested.

"Yeah," Liam agreed. Some of the accusation had seemed to leave his voice, which was good, because it meant most of the buzz from leeching was gone. Alexander felt safer interrogating him without getting called on his lies, or him dropping Violet.

"So, what were you doing up at the school, anyway? Isn't it like," he shook his hands in a shuddering motion, the best he could do while carrying Nyx.

"Very," Liam said. "Violet had a strange reaction every time mentioned Mythics, or rather, a lack of reaction. It was like they didn't disgust her. I wanted to come up here to see for myself."

Alexander passed a quick, furtive glance in Liam's direction. "And what did you think?" he asked, carefully, ready to dive below and catch Violet if Liam became angry or violent.

"Can you keep a secret?" Liam questioned in return, passing that same look to Alexander that he had just unwittingly received. Both were wary of trusting the other, but knew that in the whole predetermined spin of it, they would eventually have no choice. They understood that something was very wrong with the obvious, and though they couldn't quite put their finger on it, understood that they were getting very close to some dangerous answers.

Alexander nodded in response to Liam's question, thinking of all his lies and dishonesty and the ease with which he had hurt Nyx. Nyx was never going to forgive him for it. No matter how many times he helped her, saved her life, there would always be that one over-lying shadow in any salvaged friendship they might have, reminding her of what he had done. He supposed it was okay, though.

He was never going to forgive himself, either.

"When I first walked into the grounds, and looked at the Mythics, I felt what everyone always tells us we should feel. Repulsion, disgust, loathing, revulsion... they're so… confused… sometimes completely overcome by the instincts of their benefactor, but then fighting it away to regain their humanity. It was gross."

"But," Alexander prodded, sensing there was more to this story.

"After I stayed there for a little while, the feeling started to go away. I wasn't disgusted by them anymore. I found myself relating to them, actually. It was like…"

"Déjà vu," Alexander finished for him, looking at Violet and wondering how much of this she had worked out.

"As if we were, I mean, at a time," Liam stumbled through an explanation.

"Mythics," he finally answered, saving him. He remembered when he first met Violet, and how baffled he was that she was capable of living in the midst of so many Mythics without feeling like she wanted to peel off her own skin. He wondered how she was surviving without leeching, the only reason for her almond brown eyes.

Alexander had grown up leeching, had never known anything other than it. Sure, there were the Newheads, who preached against it, saying it was intrusive and wrong. Maybe they were on to something, though. Maybe, leeching did something to Nosophorus. It made them hard and fearless, but also inhibited their cognition.

He knew that three days ago, he would never be able to think through this. He knew that that screwed up, furrowed expression on Liam's face would have been identical to his if someone had told him this before he started leeching off Mythics.

Before he reversed the effects of leeching off humans.

That was why Violet was so different. She hadn't leached in years, maybe never even at all. That's why she was so freaking smart.

He remembered his realization that Violet didn't know what she was. Maybe she didn't know what she was because she couldn't remember. Maybe, she had learned something as dangerous as Nosophori just being some kind of Mythic, and her memory was taken away from her. Perhaps the Elders didn't keep the Nosophori as safe in Still-time as he had always liked to think.

He groaned out loud as he felt his brain complain against all this annoying, intellectual thought. This was the problem with searching for the right answers. It inevitably only led to more questions.

"Liam," Alexander said, after a while of contemplative silence. "How long has it been since you leeched last?"

Liam shrugged. "Not long at all. Why?"

"What's the longest you've been able to go without it?" Alexander continued, ignoring is question.

"My aunt is a Newhead, and dared me to try to go without leeching for three days. I couldn't do it. I broke after a day."

"Yeah," Alexander said, slowly, remembering that he had needed to leech at least once a day, then, too, sometimes more if he had been using his powers a lot or was pulling an all-nighter.

Kind of like now.

Except, he didn't feel that constant, burning hunger in his stomach. He knew he wanted to leech, but he didn't have to.

That's when he noticed the hard-edge that had seemed to slip from the world, that leftover buzziness that never left frequent leechers. When he looked down at the distant ground, looking at his straining wingbands, he felt fear. "Liam," Alexander said, slowly. "Don't leech anymore. I can't explain it to you, now. You won't get it. Take my word for it, though. It's going to hurt like all hell, but whatever you do, _don't leech_."

Liam stared at him, blankly, completely at a loss to his reasoning. "Okay?" he said, unsurely.

"One more thing," Alexander said. "Your aunt, the Newhead, does she live nearby?"

Liam rolled his eyes. "She lived nearby before we flew so long in this direction."

Alexander groaned, but turned around, following Liam back in the direction they came from. At least he was getting his exercise.

**Oh yeah, one more thing. Sorry if I have any Paris Hilton fans reading this and are thoroughly insulted by my cheap little shot at her. I just got bored today and was reading an excerpt from her book online, kind of hoping for a little bit of depth behind the "like omg, tinkerbell and tiaras!" and I ended up being disapointed. **

**Like Liam said, it was all sugar and candy. No sustenance.**


	23. Chapter 23 Rage

**This chapter is only ten pages... not the longest I've ever managed, but I always break up chapters by the scene. Just be glad I'm not like James Patterson. He breaks his chapters so much, they can be only a half a page long. Egads! **

**Sorry I haven't replied to anyone's reviews. My new goal for progression of this story, plus work and college preparations and dance and trying to make a mad islander castaway costume (btw, does anyone have any suggestion for the type of top of mad islander castaway would wear? If you tell me coconuts, I'll slap you. Teehee!)... anyway, I've not had much time to reply. No real excuse, but I'm just saying. **

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, though. I really do appreciate it! **

Chapter 23— Rage

"Isabel! Isabel, wake up!"

Something annoying was stinging her cheek, swatting at her with remarkably accurate precision. She tried to lift her hand up to shoo it away, but her arm seemed too heavy. She gave it up as a lost cause.

"What's wrong with her?" asked another voice, female and melodic.

"Hell if I know," said the voice who was still slapping her cheeks. "She screamed and woke me up. I thought she was having some kind of fit."

"You didn't think to get help?" asked a kinder male voice than the one who had yet continued to slap her cheeks.

"I was kind of busy fixing the gates so our little friends couldn't come and kidnap more students," Mr. Annoying snarled.

"Stop hitting me," Isabel groaned, her tongue feeling oddly swollen and clumsy in her mouth.

"Good, she's awake," the female noted. "Isabel, what happened?"

There was blessed relief as Mr. Annoying discontinued his incessant tirade of cheek hitting. She felt her self sink back down in smooth, black unconsciousness…

"No, Isabel, don't go to sleep," came a panicked male voice, the one who hadn't been hitting her. He grabbed her arms and pulled her upwards, and Isabel made an incomprehensible noise of complaint. Very uncool to wake a girl when she was sleeping and/or unconscious. That was her opinion on the matter.

"Quit it," she muttered as she felt herself being pulled from under the warm blankets and out into the drafty air.

"Open the window," he said.

"What's it feel like?" music-girl asked.

John shook his head, feeling from his contact with Isabel none of her usual controlled and icy fire, constant lingering anger, fierce protective instinct… it was like holding an Isabel-clone, an exact replica of the girl without any of the memories or emotions to back it up with. "Not like Isabel," he said, finally.

The blast of cold from the outside did a little to jumpstart her consciousness, making her slightly more sharp and alert. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Why did you scream?" Tyler asked, helping John seat Isabel close to the window and the icy nip of the wind.

Her head lolled pathetically on her shoulders as she was propped up in the corner. "It's cold," she complained to no one in particular.

"Yeah, we know," John said. "Just stay with us a little longer and you can get warm again. Raven," The red head turned at the sound of her name. "Will Epione be well enough to heal again?"

Raven shook her head. "She would try if you asked her, but it would endanger her too much. Isabel would never forgive you."

"I'm fine," Isabel muttered, annoyed by all this worried attention. "Just let me sleep." She closed her eyes again, only to have her cheeks assailed once more by hard, knuckled hands. She let out a strangled cry of annoyance, managing to wrench her eyes open and clamp her teeth around those stupid, crooked, malformed hands.

"Argh!" Tyler howled in pain, ripping his hand back, and with it, Isabel was sure, a few of her teeth. "What is the _matter_ with her?"

Isabel giggled.

John's eyes widened as he heard the tiniest echo of emotion in her. It was like the person she used to be was hidden by a heavy black curtain, but every time something stimulated a severe emotion, a hole would be punctured in the curtain, letting in a little Isabel-light. "Tyler," John said urgently.

"What!" Tyler snapped, nursing his crooked hand.

"Make her angry."

Tyler said something incomprehensible, but the harsh note of sarcasm and bitterness could not be missed. "Isabel, you stupid girl, look at me! What made you scream?"

Her head was lolling on her shoulder again, a weird, dreamy smile perking her lips. She looked like a young girl who had just seen a picture of her favorite actor, fawning and gazing at the inanimate magazine photograph; the star remaining blissfully unaware of her devotion. "David," she said, after a long moment. "It was David."

Tyler had not been entirely sure how he was going to get Isabel angry. Admittedly, they fought a lot, but Isabel never actually lost her temper. She could yell and scream with the best of them, but Tyler never forgot that she was always completely under control. She could turn her fury on and off as easily as a light.

When she said his name though, he could feel that old, familiar rage bubble up in him. He loved Isabel, that kind of thankless, painful love that came when one knows they are not loved back. He knew, deep down, that if they were ever in a situation where he must risk his own life to save hers (and he was well-aware that this was a frequently passing occurrence in their lives), he would experience that sickly, twisted feeling of hesitation, wondering _what's the point_.

"It was not David," Tyler said through gritted teeth. "David is dead, he has been for years."

"It was David," Isabel said again, with the utmost sureness in her voice.

"If it was David, than why did he hurt you? Did David hurt you?"

"No." There was a note of anger in her voice.

"Did he suck you dry, turn you into an empty shell of yourself?"

"No!"

"Then how could you say it was David?"

Isabel glared, blearily. "It was him."

Tyler clenched his hands to the closest thing to fists he could manage. He resisted the urge to take Isabel's shoulders and shake some sense into her. "David is dead! He's dead, he's gone! You had a chance to bring him back and you didn't! Now let it go and move on!"

This time, when Isabel spoke, her voice was raised an octave, a sure sign she was losing it. "No! _Shut up!_"

"You're just afraid to let him go because you know, if you do, you have to admit that he did hurt you."

Isabel's head fell on her pulled-up knees, a harsh, ragged breath racking her lungs. "He never hurt me."

Tyler took Isabel's face in his malformed hands, forcing her gaze to his furious eyes. "He did. He died and left you alone."

Isabel's hands clenched into tight fists, her sparkling gray eyes narrowing slowly.

"And you could have brought him back…"

A red tinge of fury blossomed across Isabel's cheeks.

"But you left him."

Her jaw rippled ever so slightly as her teeth ground together.

"Keep going," John breathed, hearing more and more Isabel shining through that heavy curtain.

Tyler's expression was not of one pretending to be angry to help the woman he loved. The greatest actor in the world could not duplicate the twist of his brow, the sharp downward curve of his mouth, the pulse of veins standing stark against the furious pallor of his skin. There was no single word to describe the fury in such a face.

"Just admit it," Tyler hissed, his voice low and saturated with rage. "It was your fault. You're the reason he's dead."

There was the briefest fraction of a second of tense stillness, like the moment between releasing an atomic bomb and waiting for it to detonate. Breath was held, hearts were slowed, waiting for that one moment where everything exploded and disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

And then, just as if the curtain that was hiding and blocking off Isabel's emotions had been ripped off, letting in scores of bright, furious sunlight, Isabel reacted. She gave a scream and lunged for Tyler, complete unbridled fury, without control or limitations. John's hands flew to his ears as he caught the sound of Isabel in the extreme. This must have been what she was like before Raphael broke her. All passion and fire. _Loud_ passion and fire.

"Stop it, Isabel. Get off of him! Stop!"

Tyler stood no chance against Isabel. For one, Isabel was not without certain physical talents of her own, taking all the karate, kun-fu, and ju-jitsu classes she could get her hands on when she was younger. Secondly, though Tyler had grown up without the use of his hands, the lack of mobility in them still put him at a severe disadvantage when Isabel pounced on him, hands clutching his throat.

The loud, raucous mix of growling, gasping, shouting was suddenly smoothly interjected by a sweet, melodic chime. Isabel looked up briefly, and could not remember why it was she was lunging for the skinny little neck of Tyler. She released him and stood up slowly, just as that stunningly perfect voice implored her to do.

Tyler stood, rubbing his sore neck and coughing a few times. He was glaring at Isabel, still angry, but Siren's voice prevented him from taunting her anymore.

Siren looked pointedly at John, knowing he could read her expressions well enough after all their time together. John cleared his throat. "Tyler, I think you should go."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Why?"

"Tyler," John implored, slowly.

"No, don't Tyler me!" he roared. "I may not be one of your precious Mythics, but I'm as much apart of this school as you are. Do you think you would be able to function half as well without my numbers?"

"No one is denying your importance," John said, calmly.

"Like hell you're not! It's always the same, no matter what happens, no matter the disaster. It's always the founders against the world. You never let anyone else in!"

Siren stopped singing, hurt wounding her hawk-like eyes. "That's not fair," she whispered, knowing her voice was too strong for human ears in her Mythic form. "You know how far we've come together."

Tyler let out a strangled cry, somewhere between frustration, anger and agony. "Don't think for a moment that I didn't go through half the shit you did, okay?"

Siren's eyes closed, cursing her tactless choice of words. Tyler had probably been through more than any of them, kidnapped as a child and forced into genetic testing to become a Mythic. Just had to look at his hands to tell how well that worked. "Just leave, okay? Start a roster to see if we have any missing students, then do a little research to find where they could be. Can you do that?"

He glared down at her, standing close enough to her that his thin body-frame could actually be threatening. John resisted the urge to stand in front of his wife, knowing she wouldn't want the help in this instance. "You can control my will, can't you? Why don't you just make me do it?"

Siren was about to reply that she would never do that to him, and he should know her better than that by now. A dry, and whispery hiss interrupted her, though.

It had taken only those few words Siren just said to bring Isabel out of her consuming rage and back to her cool, controlled purpose. _Start a roster to see if we have any missing students_. That was all it took.

There was no more time for fights, arguments, betrayal. Not when her students were in danger. She glared at Tyler, liquid stone forming on her tongue, her eyes flashing a bright, stony gray. "Get out," she said, slow and pronounced.

Medusa was much more controlled now than in her early years of changing. Then, she would turn a man to stone with just a look and sweet taste of stone across her tongue. Quick. Instantaneous. Now, she could control it; turn a man to stone piece by tiny piece.

Tyler felt the tips of his fingers harden.

"Get out," Medusa repeated.

Tyler, furious beyond all comprehensible thought, but knowing deep down, that Raven had said the exact thing that he had to do the moment he left, he exited the room, slamming the door with all his might behind him.

"Okay," Raven said, changing out of form, and getting straight down to business. "What happened to you? What made you scream?"

Isabel ran her fingers though her curly hair, thinking. "It was David. I know it was him."

"Isabel," Raven said slowly. "David is—"

"Dead, I know. But it was him, Raven. I know it was. It's just, he's no longer like us. He's not a Mythic anymore." She shuddered as she remembered the feeling of him drawing away her being, her emotions. She still felt oddly distant and distracted. It took severe effort of will to keep her mind from wandering off again. She decided it would probably be a while before she felt right again.

The rage had helped, though.

"Then what is he?" Raven asked.

John made a face, squinting in pain as he saw something of the future. He saw Violet, Alexander, Nyx and another boy he did not recognize. They were all talking and the same word appeared frequently in their conversations, repeating and questioning, reappearing as the forever unknown but slowly understood question. "Nosophorus," John said, saying the word out loud.

"What?"

John looked at Isabel, and believed every word she had just said about David. He was alive. Sort of. "It's the answer to Isabel's question. Humans are the mice, we are the snakes and Nosophorus are the hawks."

"Then why haven't we ever seen them before tonight?" Raven questioned. She wasn't trying to put down Isabel and John's theory. Every good hypothesis had to have the holes filled in, though. There could be no question marks in this matter. Any question marks left the threat of lives to pay.

"We have," Isabel said, remembering David's amethyst eyes and colorless features. "Alexander and Violet."

"None other than that?" Raven pressed, the impossibility of the statistic painfully obvious. She could see where they were going with their theory. Noso-whats-its were what happened to Mythics after they died. If that were the case, then there should be a Noso-thinger for every Mythic dead.

She knew for a fact there was a few more than two.

John shook his head, recalling one of his visions. "They hunt where they can't be seen, where no one can fight back." Both Raven and Isabel waited patiently for him to make sense. "And Violet… she knows how to…"

He touched his eye, lightly, remembering the vibrant purple bruise he had seen on Violet's face during the Splat game. "Oh, no!" John hissed, the dangerous misinterpretation of his vision striking him hard. He had told Violet that her Mythic power was to stop time, when in fact, her power was to shift in and out of that alternate dimension where everyone was frozen except the hunters that lived there.

He had as good as sent her to them.

"What is it?" Isabel snapped, impatient with his silence.

And there was nothing he could do to stop her. He knew for a fact she had already crossed over.

John opened his mouth and painfully began the explanation.


	24. Chapter 24 Instincts

**I have shirked a lot on my responsibilites, and for that I am very sorry. Basically, I'm going to college in five days, so every day has been a hectic array of packing, buying, packing, saying good-bye, more packing... plus I've been messing around with getting an agent for the Mythics Trilogy (hopefully, I'll get it accepted by a big house like HarperCollins or Random House)... in a nut shell, I haven't updated in so long because I've been very busy and never got a chance to type. **

**I do have happy little announcments though. To all Twilight fans (Stephanie Meyer), the sequel, New Moon, has just been released. I read it and highly recomend it. Her style is just so eloquent. There's my happy publicity for my favorite authors. **

**Also... I am proud to say that I did all of the Pascal's Triangle written here in my head (if any of you know how to do the Pascal's Triangle, you will know this really isn't something to be proud of... I'm hoping no one has taken Algebra 3 or pre-Calc yet, though. :-D ) I did cheat on the Fibb Sequence and Pi, and looked it up on the internet. **

**But come on... do you know the first fifteen digits of pi off the top of your hear? **

Chapter 24— Instincts

Hannah was aware of something searing and hot in her shoulder, and then something constricting and tight over that. She opened her eyes blearily, and made a note of complaint.

"Sorry," Mike apologized, noticing she was awake. "We had to stop your bleeding. It was going through the bandages."

Now Hannah really did look at her shoulder, and saw that the tightness was not due to any injury, but rather a sleek, powerful boa constrictor wound around her shoulder. She stared at it mistrustingly for a few long moments, trying to figure out what was going on, where she was, and why there was a snake wrapped around her.

"It's just Julia," Kyle assured her, noting her confusion.

Hannah nodded slowly, swallowing a few times to moisten her throat. Her throat was mightily sore. When she touched it, she could feel a bruise just above her collar bone, with a pinprick in the center. She assumed that was from the tranquilizer. "Where are we?" she asked, since the question of 'what happened?' had an obvious answer.

"We think we're still pretty close to the school," Mike said. "We weren't in the helicopter for very long."

Hannah shook her head. "Didn't they think that the founders would come find us?" she asked, the sheer idiocy of staying close to the school they had just kidnapped four kids from striking her.

"I think that's what they want," Kyle admitted. There was a collective shudder that went through all the captives, but it lasted only a moment. Despite the fact that they had been taken by surprise and kidnapped, they were too well-trained to start to panic.

"How long have we been here?" Hannah asked.

Mike shook his head. "Ask Julia. I've been too in and out of it, and Kyle was a puddle for most the time."

Some of the pressure relieved from her shoulder as Julia slithered off and reclaimed her human form. "We've been in this room about a half hour, but we went through a search before we came in. That's how they found me," she added, making a face.

Mike whistled softly, remembering Julia had been the teeniest of fleas. "That was one thorough search."

"How's your shoulder?" Kyle asked.

Hannah made a face, circling her wounded shoulder a little. At least it had stopped bleeding. "Hurts like hell," she said, honestly. After all, she had been hit with her own greatest weapon, and she knew for a fact that her nails could slice through stainless steel.

"Can you still…" he paused, barring his hands in front of him like a cat's and swishing them around in a strange, ninja-like way.

Hannah looked at her hands, willing her nails to grow. They were as sharp and deadly as ever. "I won't be kun-fuing anyone's butts though," she said. Her gifts were the best for physical attack, so for her last four years at school, her gym electives had been devoted to karate, ju-jitsu and kun-fu. "Or flying," she added, blanching at the thought of changing into Harpy and moving her wounded shoulder with enough force to take to the air.

"Let's just start with getting out of here, then," Julia suggested. Her pajamas were stained red with Hannah's blood, and her eyes were dry and bloodshot from lack of sleep.

Hannah smiled, already standing up, barring her razor sharp nails at the poor, insignificant door knob.

"No wait!" Julia cried, but Hannah, as usual, didn't listen to think through her actions.

As Hannah's knife like fingers came down on the knob, a painful surge of electricity jerked her hand and whizzed through her body. Sparks flew off her blond hair, now standing straight from the top of her head. She tore her hand away with a grunt, nursing her painfully buzzing arm.

Julia made a face as her sensitive nose picked up the delightful aroma of burning hair. "I tried to warn you. We already tried that when you were unconscious."

Tears of pain stung the back of Hannah's eyes, but she blinked them away impatiently. Crying was an instinctive reaction to something as painful as having huge volts of energy surge through one's body, but it didn't make it any less annoying. "Okay, then what are your ideas?"

There was silence from the other captive as they thought, trying to figure out a way to use their combined talents to get them out of here. It was kind of like Raven's game of charades, except now, the consequences to losing was infinitely greater.

"What about the air vent?" Mike asked, suddenly, his tired eyes focusing in on the small grating.

It was such a cliché idea. Someone goes into the air vents unlock the door from the outside. As Julia sprung to her feet to test the grating, she wondered just how many cheesy action flicks had used just this strategy.

Julia gave the grating over the vent a hard tug, but it was screwed to the wall tight. She looked expectantly to Hannah, who was trying to flatten her blond hair. "Uh… hello? Miss America? A little help, please?"

"Huh?" she asked, startled back to attention. "Oh, right. Sorry."

She barred her nails and sliced a clean cut in the center of the metal. The space was much too small for a human to sneak through, but then, a human would barely be able to get an entire arm in the vent itself. Julia shape changed quickly, becoming a mouse, and slipped through the hole.

A mouse was probably her least favorite shape to change into. There was the human part of her that always got weirded out at the fact that her nose was so close to the floor, a sensation she imagined to be like being strapped to the bottom of a car as it whizzed down the autobahn at a hundred miles an hour. When she allowed the instincts of the mouse to kick in, though, there wasn't a whole lot of depth to it. Mice were just so darn scared all the time.

Bright lights. Run!

Loud noises. Run!

Humans. _Run! _

It took her a solid minute, standing stock-still in the middle of the vent, to get control of the mouse's instincts. Though she knew that it would be quite happy in the dark and close vents, she also knew she would have to jump out of the vents, still as a mouse. And it might not be quite as happy with that. It was better to get control, now.

Finally satisfied, she began to whiz forward, her tiny little mouse legs moving with remarkable speed, keeping her eyes peeled for any flashes of light that would mean another room.

She skidded to a halt when she saw a white flash that made the mouse quiver with dread. Sticking her nose out of the vent, she tried to smell if the room was occupied or not. There was no way she trusted the eyes of such a creature. It was just too near-sighted.

She didn't smell anyone, and there was definitely no unusual sound coming from in there. She checked the mouse half of her brain. The mouse didn't want to go in because it was wide, open and bright. There was nothing about big scary humans though.

Squeezing out of the vent proved to be the bigger problem. This time, she didn't have Hannah to cut a more comfortable sized hole in the grating, so she had to do her best to suck in her breath and force her way through. She was very lucky that she wasn't a fat mouse. She ended up shaving some fur off her back anyway, but it was better than being stuck between the metal prongs.

Falling to the floor… there was another problem.

Her mind knew for a fact that she was so light, and the distance to the floor was so small, it wouldn't hurt very much when she hit the ground. She would probably break her leg, but when she reclaimed her human DNA, the injury wouldn't carry over, anyway.

The mouse, on the other hand, wasn't quite as confident in Julia's hypothesis. If the mouse had the vocal capacity to scream its head off, it would have. Julia was overcome by a wash of animalistic panic, tiny heart stuttering and leaping, throat closing…

She didn't believe it! The mouse was about to die of a heart attack rather than die from hitting the floor. She had never been in this particular situation before, but she was fairly certain that if the animal shape she was in had the sudden desire to kill itself, and succeeded, she would probably die with it.

Crap.

She shifted to human before the mouse could totally kill her, making a mental note to avoid that shape at all costs from now on. She would be going as a snake next time she crawled through air vents. A venomous snake. One that ate mice.

Julia swallowed an oath of pain as she hit the floor in an unorganized mess. She slammed her face into cold, unyielding linoleum at the impact, and stuffed her fist in her mouth to suppress a scream. Blood dribbled over her face from her nose, tears blurring her vision.

She made another mental note to not hit her face against linoleum anymore.

Pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding, Julia looked around. The room was much like the one she had just escaped, with a few major differences. For one, this room had furniture… a desk and chair in the middle, with a few smaller, less comfortable looking chairs in front of it. There was also the added bonus that the door was wide open.

Julia crept over to the door as quietly as possible, trying to mentally gauge how far in which direction she had come, so she could get back there. In the end, she decided to go right, simply because she had heard someone say back at school that if you were ever lost, you must always avoid going left.

She couldn't get away with changing into an animal either. Any animal that was intelligent enough to recognize direction would be too big too be stealthy within these florescent lit halls. She was stuck as a human, clutching her sluggishly bleeding nose, and keeping her eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

"Hey! Hey you!"

Julia's heart did a funny little flop as she heard the voice coming from behind her. She turned around, quickly, her legs already sinking into a battle stance.

The speaker swore when he saw her, beckoning to two others behind him. "It's one of the kids! Tranq her, now!"

When she heard the click of a gun being drawn, her mind sped into overdrive. Her power was to shape-change into animals, but unlike say, Medusa's, powers, she actually had to think about what she wanted to do. Turning someone to stone… that was easy, instinctive. Julia had to run through a mental list of all the animal DNA in her bloodstream, and figure out which one would be the best for this given situation. She had to think _fast_.

She needed a battle shape, something tough and scary. Her first thought was a tiger, her favorite attack mojo, but doing an instantaneous size up of who she was up against, decided she needed something bigger.

A grizzly bear. Those were big. They wouldn't stand a chance against her grizzly bear shape. But then… he did say tranquilizer. It would take more than one; she made a _big_ bear. They could get her down, though. She needed bigger.

An elephant. She could shiskabob these morons as an elephant. Her mind flitted through the necessary DNA, and she cursed. Elephants were fairly peaceful. As an elephant, she wouldn't even want to shiskabob them.

As a dart whizzed from the barrel of a gun, Julia finally got her idea. This shape was stronger than the tiger, the bear and the elephant combined. The entire U.S army would be crippled under its force.

As she changed, the dart flew harmlessly over her head. She could hear the click of another one being loaded in place, but ignored it. They would get her message soon enough.

"Hold it," she heard the first man order.

The two with weapons dropped their guns, respectively, fully aware there would be nothing they could do against this animal.

"Back away, slowly," the man breathed.

They took a step backwards, then another.

_Oh, I don't think so_, Julia thought, turning around, arching her striped back.

And sprayed.

Immediately, the putrid stench of skunk juice choked the air. Her attackers choked and gagged on it, their eyes watering as they were caught on ground zero. So distraught from the rancid smell, none of them noticed the little black and white forest creature scurrying out of the way. The one with the gun could have sworn he now knew what a skunk giggling sounded like, though.

As a skunk, no one else bothered Julia. She made her way back to her friends without further setback. She reclaimed her human form in front of the door, lightly tapping it. "Guys," she hissed.

There was silence for a moment, then Mike's muffled voice replied, "Julia?"

"Yeah," she whispered. "There's a keypad on the door. I think I need a code."

Kyle sounded from inside. "Try Raphael's birthday," he suggested. There came the soft whoosh of a fist being thrown, coupled with a heavy thump. "Ouch! It was just a suggestion!"

"Shh!" Julia hissed. "We don't have much time. They already know I'm out. What should I use as a number?" Mentally, she listed through their talents in her head. No one was particularly good with numbers, nor did they have any psychic connections with technology, or the past.

They were screwed.

"It'll be some kind of sequence that they could all remember," Hannah said. "Maybe something that looks like nonsense until you know what it is."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, try some number patterns."

Julia paused, her hand lingering over the keypad. "Guys, I'm failing math."

There was the sound of Hannah's exasperated groan from the inside. "Okay, try Pascal's Triangle first. It's one, one, one, one, two, one, one, three, three, one, one, four, six, four one…"

"Okay, okay!" Julia said, halting her. "There's no more room. Do I just press it?"

"Yes!" came three anxious voice at the same time.

The keypad beeped twice, then flashed red. Julia knew red to usually be a bad color in association with technology. "No dice. What else?"

"Fibonacci Sequence," Hannah said, without hesitation. "One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine…"

"Okay," Julia said, halting her, and pressing okay. Once again, it beeped twice and flashed red. "Didn't work. Give me something else."

"Uh… how about pi?"

"I like pie," Kyle said, uselessly.

"You know pi to fifteen digits?" Julia asked, flabbergasted.

"If you can memorize it to a hundred, Tyler gives you extra credit. Okay, its three point one, four, four, five, nine, two, six, five, three, eight, nine, seven, nine, three… was that fifteen?"

"Yeah." Once again, all Julia succeeded in getting was two beeps and a red flash. She resisted the urge to become a polar bear and swat the keypad off. They had been warned time and time again at Haven that stupid maneuvers like that only worked in the movies.

Julia's heart dropped out of her chest when she heard footsteps from down the hall. "Okay, we have company. Give me another number. Quick!"

"Uh…" Hannah ran though the random number sequences she was forced to learn in grade school and was supposed to never have any use for in the future…

"Try thirteen," Mike said suddenly.

"What?"

"Raphael would use a clean number, something that everyone would remember no matter what. No one else would expect him to use a number that small."

"The keypad fits fifteen digits, though!"

"Try it!" he snapped, raising his voice for the first time in a while.

Julia had just managed to punch the two insignificant numbers in and press okay when her friends from earlier joined them.

They had gas masks.

"Oh, _crap_!" Julia hissed, ducking out of the way of the darts.

Julia was a little preoccupied at that moment, shifting into a cobra and slithering lithely out of the way of any projectiles, at the same time managing to get close enough to bite them. She was so preoccupied, that she didn't notice the joyous resonating ping of the keypad, nor the flash of green light that spread from it. Green was always good when it came to technology.

The door burst open, and the remaining three Mythics tore out, their own natural weapons barred for attack. Mike shook his head, realizing how that these three people, three humans, were very close to death. Without the wall between them to protect them, they didn't stand a chance.

Mike didn't want to see anyone dead.

So, with great risk to himself, he dove down underneath the swinging blows of their attackers, grabbing Julia by the tail and pulling her up. "Hannah, Kyle, fight later. We have to go!"

The cobra in his hands hissed and spun until he dropped it, and she changed back to human. "They still have guns," Julia protested, as they ran, pursuers not far behind.

"No they don't," Hannah said, confidently, but broadened the topic no more than that.

They turned a quick right at random, using the precious seconds of not being in visible sight to hide. Julia disappeared, becoming some tiny insect that no one would notice. Brian became water, lingering around in a human-esque shape for a moment, before collapsing to the ground and sliding under a door. Hannah and Brian both hid in the shadows in the corner, barely daring to breathe as their pursuers rushed past them, oblivious to their hiding spot.

Mike forced himself to count to ten, very slowly, before emerging from the shadows. "Okay, let's go." Julia and Kyle both reappeared, and they ran quickly and quietly, back in the direction they came.

They rounded the corner, by now panting, and nearly crashed into two new people in this madly spinning nightmare.

Raphael looked with his oddly colorless eyes between the four students, and glanced up at the slender, blue-haired Eris. "Love, if you please?" he asked, beckoning to them as they started once more to run.

Eris threw out her hand, and shouted, "Stop!" There was a brief, fleeting moment where Hannah was compelled to laugh, for it was kind of like a cop shouting 'freeze', as their subject ran off unhindered. No one was actually expected to listen.

Except, Hannah found that she did. She tried to move her arms, or if not her arms, then at least her legs, but found they would no longer obey her command. She recalled what it was supposed to feel like when someone was controlling you, like their was a short circuit in your brain that stopped the nerve impulses from reaching your arms and legs. This wasn't like that. If she concentrated and yanked her arms with all her excruciating might, she could move a little. It was like there was something pulling her full movement back, though.

Invisible ropes.

"Stop fighting it," Eris said, calmly. "You'll only hurt yourself. And don't try to change, Julia. Heaven only knows what will happen."

"I thought you were on our side," Kyle cried, outraged.

Eris made a face at him, walking forward with Raphael so she could see their faces. "I'm on no one's side," she said, for perhaps the millionth time. "And right now, I'm saving you."

"Sure looks like it," Julia said, dryly.

Eris resisted the urge to say something childish like 'bite me', with great difficulty. "I'm going to let you go, now, but please don't run. If you run, I'll only stop you again." She made a sinking motion with her hand, and immediately, the four regained control of their bodies.

"What do you want from us?" Hannah asked, her nails growing in her agitation.

Eris looked pointedly at Raphael. "Ask him."

Instead of replying, Raphael just jerked his head to beckon them forward. "Follow me."

A short walk later, they were in what looked like a private study, complete with squashy arm chairs, huge book cases, computer and flat screen, hanging television. The TV was tuned to the morning news, where a bright red caption beneath the head reporter read 'PARANORMAL MAYHEM'.

Julia swore when she recognized the building behind the reporter. "That's Haven!" she gasped, shock hitting her like a punch in the stomach.

Eris nodded, seeing the students beginning to understand. "Raphael is letting you go, but we have to advise for you not to return to the school."

Hannah was staring at the TV horrorstruck, a hand over her dropped mouth. "Why not? They need our help."

Raphael spoke up for the first time. "Your loyalty is charming, but there is more to think of here than just that. Whoever it was that revealed your school to the media, knew it would be the most crippling blow it could receive. If you return, it will no longer be a safe place."

"The Mythics are no longer a secret," Eris finished for him, gravely. "We're not sure what to expect, but if I go by instinct, I'd say the government will start to monitor births on the thirteenth, the school will no doubt be closed and the public…" she shuddered at the very thought. There was a reason that Mythics stayed hidden. There was no telling how the rest of the world would react to such information. "Best case scenario, we're constantly monitored and kept tabs on. Worst… well, use your imagination. From history we know that the world is never kind to anyone different."

Julia was crying. Hannah was still listening in shock to what the reporter was saying about them. She was making them seem like monsters. "_Young children with horrific powers all focused at a, get this, high school. Our footage shows the capabilities of these children are astronomical…with the ability to hurt and destroy with nothing more than a concentration of will…_"

Hannah tried not to listen after that.

"Isn't there anything we can do? Some way we can fight?" Mike asked, when he was sure he had found his voice.

Raphael looked him carefully. "If you were intelligent, you would cut your losses, run as far as you can, change your name, identity, contacts, and never associate with anyone from Haven again."

If Julia thought that the shock from seeing the school on the morning news was like a punch in the stomach, this news was nothing more than a knife in the chest. She sobbed, clutching her stammering heart. "Wh-what? You want us to run away?"

Eris shook her head, and caught in a moment of sympathy, wrapped the girl in a light hug. It was quick, almost instantaneous—Eris had been working with Raphael for much too long to have any real lasting instinct for sympathy—but it was an attempt. "Not run away. Survive. That's all any of us ever do. It's all we can do. The founders did it back in their time, and they've taught you all well enough that you can do it, too."

Julia shook her head, still sobbing. "No, I c-can't."

Eris raised her eyebrows. "Can you make fake idea?"

"Yes."

"Hotwire a car?"

"U-huh."

"Trip a security system."

"Unless it's made by Isabel or Tyler."

Eris smiled. "Trust me, you've been well-trained."

"In the end," Raphael said. "It's your decision. We won't stop you either way, but we can strongly suggest which direction you go in. The founders won't hold it against you."

The four once-captives looked at eachother, and a similar look of determination hardened their gazes. Even Julia, whose eyes were still red and cheeks splotched, managed the identical look. No matter how threatened they were within Haven's walls, they were still loyal to it to the very end. If this was the end of the school, then they wanted to be there to gallantly combat the blistering odds in the face of certain defeat.

After all, Haven was their home.


	25. Chapter 25 The Elders

**Be proud, be proud! This is the first chapter I have submitted from my college dorm. Yay for me! **

**So, as it turns out, I'm much more resistant to change than I thought I would be. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving and college and everything about it (except the homework), but it took me a while to get back into the swing of the story since I was typing in my dorm instead of my basement... and there are a lot of distractions here. **

**Hopefully now that I've managed to grind my way through this chapter, it will mean a break through, and I'll feel more inspired at my work space. **

**Hope everyone's having as much fun as I am with their back-to-schoolness (this was a mildly hurtful statement to everyone in highschool, who aren't done with their classes on wednesday and friday by 9:20 am... hehehehe!) **

Chapter 25— The Elders

Pain woke Violet up. Her head rushed, her brain struggling to make sense of her surroundings, but all that seemed second priority. There was two pains she was dealing with. First was the pain of her body, her arms lit with an excruciating painting of bruises and torn muscles. Vaguely, she decided never to wingband again.

Then there was the harder, more intense pain, that couldn't be placed on a specific part of her body. It was piercing her skull, burning her skin, wrenching her stomach. She stuffed her fist in her mouth to suppress a scream, her eyes closed tight and teeth clamped tight around her white knuckled fist.

She was aware, through the foggy blur of agony, that there were people speaking.

"Look at her! She's exerted herself more than any Nosophorus her age has ever done. If she doesn't leech…"

"No!" Alexander's voice snapped. "No leeching! She wouldn't want it!"

"She's in pain! At least let her leech once more so she can fight off her injuries!" It took her a moment to recognize this voice, for she had only heard it for a little while. Liam. What was he doing here?

What was _she_ doing here?

Why wouldn't the pain end!

"Look, I don't know who you think you are—" Liam started.

"I'm her friend. Don't touch her!"

Violet's body constricted on itself, the muscles tightening to such a blindingly excruciating tightness that she curled herself in a little ball, trying to relieve some of the stress. It didn't work. She wanted to open her mouth to argue with them… she would sell her soul to the devil if it meant stopping the pain. If leeching ceased it, then her hands were already itching to get on a human. When she did try her voice to argue, all that came out was a strangled, horrid scream.

"What's the matter with her?" Nyx asked, panic in her voice. She had risen slightly before Violet, and Alexander had suggested for her to put on Violet's glasses. It wasn't as if Violet needed them in Still-time, and when Nyx wore them, she found she wasn't completely blind. She imagined her sight with the glasses on was what the rest of the world suffered through when they tried to find their way in the dark.

It sucked, but at least now she could make out vague shapes.

Liam answered her. "Once you start leeching, you need it. The more work you do, the more you use your powers, the more you have to leech. Alexander here just made her use her powers dry, right after she went through a physically exhausting task. She needs to leech. The pain would be…" he shuddered, barely able to think of it.

Nyx paused a moment, thinking about it, trying to block out Violet's grunts of agony. She would almost prefer she let go and screamed. Sure, screaming didn't help the pain, but at least that meant she was accepting it. Violet was trying to fight it, keeping her lips firmly sealed against it, since that was the only thing she could do in resistance. "So… it's like a drug?"

"Huh?"

"She's basically going through withdrawal, now?"

Liam looked at Alexander, confusedly. "Is this a human thing?"

Alexander averted Liam's attention away from Nyx's sudden look of furious insult by standing up. There had never been the chance to inform Nyx of just how dangerous of a situation she was residing in. "She's not leeching, and that's final."

Nyx was still squinting at Alexander, carefully, and Alexander recognized that distinct and calculative mind at work. "Why aren't you like that, then? You leeched twice today, but you also haven't slept, used your powers a lot and wingbanded all the way over here. Even Liam's starting to feel it, and he went through far less than you."

Liam grunted, forcing out a very strained and tight smile.

Alexander suddenly wished very much that Nyx could see more clearly, for then she would notice the subtle jerk of his head, and clear message written in his amethyst eyes. She really needed to stop thinking out loud.

"It's got something to do with Mythics." Nyx breathed, suddenly, revelation dawning on her. She crawled over to where she heard Violet's whimpers of pain and lowered her hand.

"What are you doing?" Alexander snapped, snatching her wrist and pulling her up.

Nyx was certain that even though Liam had not spoken for a while, he was still in close proximity. She moved closer to Alexander to whisper in his ear. "We reverse it, don't we?"

Alexander shook his head, though not to refute her hypothesis. It was more in dread of what she was surely about to do. "The effects on Mythics aren't safe. When we do it on humans, they're fine. They only feel a little depressed." He took a slight step back so he could look at her squinting and narrowed eyes, so she would be sure of the urgency he held in his own. "None of our kind is healers, and if they were, they wouldn't be bothered to save you. You could die from this."

Nyx shook her head. "Violet won't hurt me." There was an invisible barb in this statement, reminding him that he had.

"She's not Violet, now. She's exhausted and desperate. She'll drain you dry before she realizes who you are."

"Answer my question. Do we reverse it?" Nyx was glaring, the intensity somewhat dimmed by the fact of her near-blindness.

"It's not—"

Nyx cut him off. "Answer."

"I'm pretty sure it does."

This was all Nyx needed to hear. For all the abrupt casualness of her show of gratitude to Violet, it did not escape her that her friend had saved her life. She might not be good at the emotional scenes, but her loyalty could never be doubted.

Without another thought, ignoring Alexander's shout of disapproval, she reached out and pressed her hand against Violet's face.

Liam immediately jumped forward. "What are you doing?" he shouted, hastening to block her. Sure, Violet needed to leech, but to do it on a conscious human, that was just weird.

And the way she was offering herself… that was weird too.

He shook his head, giving a silent word of thanks that her aunt was not home when they came in. From the look of it, she hadn't been here for a while. For most Nosophorus, this wasn't at all unusual, since they obviously couldn't leech off one singular family for their entire lives. Travel became somewhat necessary.

For a Newhead, though, it was strange. His aunt ate stomach food. She took the time each day to chew and swallow and digest. Though she lived in a house with still and statuesque humans, she never once fed off them. As such, there was no real reason for her to leave for long periods of time.

It worried him a little.

He banished those thoughts from his head as he looked back over to Alexander and the half-blind human female. As he studied them, he sensed the same connection between them that he felt with Violet. Harsh, sudden and purely instinctual. When Alexander looked at her, it took a dangerous step past simple, fuzzy affection. This was need. And desire.

But when the girl, Nyx, looked back at him, it was with none of the same intensity. There was intensity there without a doubt, but hers was angry and betrayed. Hers was completely unforgiving.

His hands itched to lightly brush against her hand or face, not to leech, but to get a quick taste of what was going on behind that furious mask. He tightened his long, pale fingers into fists and stuffed them under his arms, resisting. He couldn't leech anymore. Alexander said he wouldn't understand it, not yet, but it would all make sense after the buzziness completely went away.

As he watched on, idly, seeing the color drain from Nyx's face, and a look of displeasure to wrinkle her brow, he wondered what it would be like to have the buzz completely gone. He couldn't remember the last time he wasn't at least a little bit buzzy. If he ever felt it wearing off too much, or if his head started to ache from going without leeching for so long, he would always just find a way to replace it.

Being buzzy was fun, though! It was intense and strong; he felt completely fearless. He could jump off a roof, wingbands or no, without even the slightest squirm of queasiness in his stomach. What would it be like without it, when he had to make decisions despite his fear?

He looked at Nyx closely, for a moment, wondering if this was how she felt everyday. She was only a human, after all. She didn't have the advantages of being able to leech and get buzzy enough to erase her fear. Was her heart stammering and thumping right now in terror, as she gave herself up to her friend? Was she beginning to regret her decision as Violet sucked her dry, every last drop of feeling and emotion taken?

Violet's eyes shot open suddenly, a fierce amethyst in color, and she gave a panicked scream. "No! What are you doing!" She scrambled up, pushing Nyx off her. A Nosophorus couldn't sense another Nosophorus like they could with humans, but Liam didn't need his super-sensitive hands to see Violet was still in pain. There was a flash of agony in her amethyst eyes as she kicked Nyx out of the way, a wave of green nausea clear on her face as she pushed herself back.

It was impossible for him to understand.

"Violet, are you okay?" he asked, finding his voice behind all of this painful thinking.

He reached out to steady her as she swayed a little, but she swatted him away. "I'm fine," she snapped, harshly. Liar. She glared at Nyx, and Liam noticed that despite their anger, they both looked worse than death. "Why'd you have to do that?"

"A thank you will do just fine," Nyx muttered, holding her head in her hands. Alexander stepped up behind her to comfort her, his hands lowering onto her shoulders. She visibly flinched, too weak to push him away. Alexander noticed and removed his hands, taking two long steps back.

Violet sighed. "Thank you for saving my life," she said, with a familiar, mock exasperation. They had been here before, though the situation was reversed. "Does this mean we're even?"

Nyx nodded. "Can we go now?"

Violet thought of her nice warm bend in her dorm at Haven, with the extra blanket and super fluffy pillow, and couldn't resist a visible quiver of desire. Then she recalled the state of chaos her home had been, and the gentle warm feeling of memory was washed away in cold ice water. She made a face. "Let's go," she said, pushing Liam out of the way (it was a sign of her exhaustion and the sheer insanity of her life that she didn't find the fact that Liam was present at all unusual), and held her hand out to Nyx.

"Wait!" Alexander called, standing between her and Nyx. "Not yet."

Violet rolled her eyes. "Don't make me break you," she said as a kind of simple, pleasant promise.

"You have to understand," he implored.

Nyx struggled to her feet, gray and flushed. "We—don't—trust—you," she rasped.

It was such an obvious statement, but Alexander found it struck him harder than anything else, even Nyx flinching away from his touch. Bitterly, he remembered how open the Mythics were to touch, unafraid to hold each other when scared, or to lean on another to borrow strength or comfort. He knew he would never be welcome to into that world again, but he had allowed himself the slim hope that maybe, just maybe, by wingbanding all the way here with their unconscious bodies had begun to redeem him. Obviously he was exceedingly mistaken.

Alexander was mortified to find that when he tried to speak, it came out choke with emotion, perhaps even tears. "Y-you—" He paused to clear his throat. "You won't be able to switch back anyway. I don't know how you can do it without a trick from the Elders, but it takes a lot of power. Power which you don't have right now."

Violet glared. "I'll take my chances."

"Remember when I made you use the last of your tricks?"

"Yeah?" Violet replied, mistrustingly.

"It'll be like that. How will you help the school if you are unconscious?"

Alexander knew he had struck that crucial point of logic that would cause Violet to falter, the keystone in her entire theory. Her fierce but droopy eyes flickered down, looking at the pale Nyx. "She's not going to be okay without help," she finally said, remembering another part of her argument.

Nyx looked between the two of them, caught in an angry stare down, and gave a frustrated growl. "Conference," she called, shooing Alexander and sitting on the floor with Violet. This was more because she didn't think she had the strength to stand for much longer than for privacy. No matter how softly they spoke, there was no doubt that both Alexander and Liam would be using their tricks to eavesdrop.

"I'm doing it," Violet said, without even a moment's hesitation.

Nyx raised her eyebrows. "Can you do it is the better question," she stated, dryly. "You are no help to either of us if you pass out again."

Violet pursed her lips. "You're no help to either of us if you're dead."

Nyx nodded, appreciatively. "A valid point," she commented, as if speaking of something as common as the weather. "But we don't know what these powers of yours do yet. Alexander tricked you to get you to use them all, but it might not end with simply passing out this time."

"But he said—"

"Remember, we don't trust him," Nyx reminded, sweetly.

"Oh, right." Violet paused a moment, thinking of their sudden lose-lose situation. "So, who's it going to be? Me or you?"

Nyx was about to open her mouth to say she could tough it out a little longer, and they were relatively safe for the time being. If they could stay here for long enough for Violet to gain her strength back, she would be able to switch them back without any harm to herself. She knew that Violet was thinking on the opposite terms though, willing to withstand the pain of withdrawal all over again to make sure that she saw either Epione or Claire.

She made a face, smacking her cheek soundly to keep from falling asleep. It was hard, trying to make such an important decision, when she was so detached from herself, so far from her own emotions.

"We'll draw straws," she decided, suddenly, then made a face, realizing she had nothing to create even a makeshift straw with. "A coin works, too."

Violet stood, breezing past Alexander and Liam, and hunted around on the coffee table for a coin. It was unusual. It seemed that Nosophori lived in residences of humans, leeching off them in carefully controlled portions. They slept in the same bed, and when the desire arose to eat stomach food, they would rifle through the same refrigerator. Despite this, the humans could have no knowledge of their presence, living in a time completely different to their own. They were completely vulnerable.

As Violet pushed across torn envelopes, lifted coasters and forgotten coffee mugs, she idly wondered how many of the people in psych wards were actually crazy at all. She wondered how many were actually the way they were from what Nosophorus did to them.

She wondered if she had ever done it.

She recalled the man from the club, and how she had wanted so badly to drain him dry. What would have happened if Liam hadn't been there to stop her? Did she want it so much because she subconsciously remembered how wonderful it felt to take everything they had? Or was it what made her lose her memory in the first place?

She grumbled in frustration, finally finding a stray quarter and stumbling back over to Nyx. When she had fruitlessly tried to uncover her past in Haven, she had thought she would get her memory back once she started being reminded of her past, her life before she was thirteen. Now here she was, in Still-time, going through withdrawal from leeching after wingbanding for excruciating miles under the weight of a thirteen-cursing Mythic… and still nothing. The only answers she had gotten were making the rest of her questions that much more confusing.

"Heads or tails?" Nyx asked, breaking Violet's train of thought.

"Heads we go back," Violet said, though had no intention of staying even if the coin read tails.

"Tails we wait," Nyx replied, though she had no intention of letting Violet go anywhere even if the coin read heads.

Violet flipped the coin.

As the coin twisted and spun in the air, heads over tails, tails over heads, a weak charge of electricity buzzed through Nyx's fingers, her affinity with chaos choosing the worst moment to reveal itself. As Liam and Alexander walked closer, both eager to see the result of the coin toss, they stumbled into each other. To catch his balance, Liam instinctively reached out, his hand brushing against the bare skin on the back of Nyx's neck.

He whipped his hand back suddenly, as if he had just been burned. "What the hell?" he shouted, glaring at Nyx. He pointed at her, his long, pale hands shaking in disgust. "She's a Mythic."

Nyx raised her eyebrows. "And?"

Liam swallowed hard to resist the urge to gag. He flexed his fingers hard, thinking through some kind of theory, any kind, to hurt her, to get rid of her. A Mythic! A conscious Mythic! He had talked to her!

He had just touched her!

Erased. That's what she needed to be. Take away the curvy lines, the ashen shadows, smudge the intense eyes and the sprinkling of freckles. He could make her go away.

"No!" He didn't have the chance to scoff at Alexander, to even begin to vocalize his utter disgust for him, before he slammed into him, shoving him into the wall, forearm locked under his chin. "Get out of here!" Alexander screamed, his voice tense from holding back Liam, who was struggling to get free and get rid of Nyx. "Go! He's calling the Elders! Go!"

There was a trick that all Nosophorus could do, a kind of internal 9-1-1. If ever they were really in trouble, they could send off a signal with their powers, a signal that the closest Elder would receive and act upon immediately. Their society was one of careful control, so being at close accessibility to the source of a major problem was essential. Violet had seconds to react. Literally, seconds.

Violet grabbed Nyx's hand, concentrating on her theory of jump-starting time once more. She didn't think of the consequences of after—the obvious pain she was about to endure from using her powers again after such a brief reprieve, or the awkward situation of appearing in some strangers house in the middle of the night. She knew she couldn't distract herself with these small trivialities. This was one of those moments that were entirely reliant on necessity—and the necessity was to make sure Nyx remained safe.

Her eyes snapped open, a sickly feeling of panic poisoning her stomach as she realize, she couldn't do it. She didn't have enough left in her to accomplish such a task. Her body was learning to handle her powers, even if her head was still a little further behind. It was not going to let her drain herself. Not now.

The door burst open, and three figured in floor length black robes, deep hoods cloaking their eyes and face. Nyx and Violet had twin expressions of terror on their faces. Alexander released Liam roughly, diving between the two near-helpless girls and the new guests in the room.

"They're my charge, from my task," Alexander huffed, his voice tight and out of breath.

The middle cloaked figure, moved forward, but the movement was so sudden, graceful and beautiful in a completely unnatural way, that a cringe rippled through the other four. The middle creature (Violet couldn't be sure if it was male or female), grabbed Alexander's chin with pristinely pale fingers, nails digging into his jaw. "It was not this task we assigned you," the Elder hissed, a shuddering dry sound. Violet imagined that if the deadliest, most aggressive spider had the ability to speak, its voice would sound exactly like that.

The Elder looked to barely even move a muscle. When Violet blinked, the hand that had originally held Alexander was now resting pristinely upon the black silken robes, and Alexander was some far distance away, oddly strewn about against the fissured wall.

"Alexander!" Nyx cried, without thinking, a painful twist of worry clenching her stomach as she tried to find her feet to help him. She was still so weak, though. So detached. There were only little moments, here and there, where she could actually feel all of herself.

Alexander groaned, shaking his head and struggling to use his voice. "Don't move!" he grunted, squinting his eyes closed against the pain.

Nyx froze, unsure why she was doing what Alexander was saying, but feeling that it was imperative that she did.

The lead-Elder jerked and twisted forward, reaching out once more with that too-long hand, to lower on Nyx's head. Nyx's breath quickened in rate, bordering hyperventilation, her heart thumping so hard, she was certain she would choke on it soon.

"She's in front of you," Liam growled from the far corner, and Alexander swore so bad, Violet actually found the ability to raise her eyebrows in the light of it. The Elders were, by definition, the leaders of the Nosophorus society, making sure they remained hidden and safe. Every Nosophorus became an Elder eventually, though, as with any society, some were inevitably higher than others.

The station of Elder came when a Nosophorus reached a certain point of leeching, where physical contact was no longer necessary, were the dangerous, fearless predatory sense became part of their nature as opposed to a side effect of the leeching. An Elder didn't need to leech to buzzy. They were already buzzy. _All_ the time.

The only problem with having such a definitive attachment to Still-time and leeching and buzziness, was that parts of the Mythic-time tended to fall through the cracks. Just as Nyx's eyes weren't designed to see in Still-time's light-sucking radiance, the Elders eyes weren't designed to see anything other than their fellow Nosophorus. They didn't need to see their prey anymore to locate it, and since Nyx would be the last thing to prey on their mind, she was as good as invisible to the Elders.

Alexander had this all figured out in seconds. He had never known his intuition to pick up on such small details as this. He knew Liam was only speaking out of frustration, wondering why the Elders were taking so long in destroying the lone-Mythic in Still-time. He was speaking out of impatient exasperation.

His impatience had just signed Nyx's death sentence.

The Elder lunged down, following Liam's shouted direction, but the pale hands came up with nothing but air and a few white-blond strands of hair. Violet had pushed Nyx out of the way.

Watching the Elder's move was like seeing a Picasso painting come to life. Each movement was strikingly and insurmountably beautiful, but in an unnatural, jerky and angled way. When the Elder brought the hand draped in strands of hair to the nose, no one could resist a shudder. It just wasn't right, seeing a human-esque figure move that way.

Alexander couldn't stand to watch as the Elder caught the scent of the hair, like a bloodhound. He beckoned Violet and Nyx toward him, knowing that even though he didn't stand a chance against the Elders, he still had more of a fighting shot than the weakened-Nyx and the powerless-Violet. They crawled over as quickly and quietly as possible.

Alexander grabbed Violet's wrist the moment she was in close enough proximity, an alert eye still remaining on every movement of the Elders. He was not naïve enough to think that since they hadn't acted in the seconds it took for Violet and Nyx to crawl over meant that they were off the hook. Their inaction belied their strong and deadly thought.

He communicated through their physical contact. _Go through the backdoor. Can you wingband? _

He looked at Violet's arm, the sleeves pushed up past the elbow, and blanched. He had been concentrating so much on the pain of her withdrawal, now that it was only a niggling ache, he had thought all would be well. It didn't even occur to him that Violet could be suffering from something _besides _withdrawal. Asking Violet to wingband in this state, with Nyx on her back no less, would probably leave permanent damage on her arms.

_It's okay_, Violet replied, confidently, sensing his thoughts through their connection. _Once I have enough strength, I'm switching back to Haven. Epione can heal me, there. _

He pressed the wingbands in Violet's hand, and as they gripped hands to bolt away, Alexander used his powers for some big tricks. Where Violet conformed her gifts to the laws of math and science, and Liam plied his like artist's clay, Alexander used the intangible connections between people. He pulled off the relationship between husband and wife, and how that relationship determined the relationship to their children. He could make them and break them, and use them to do whatever he wanted. It required a firm handle on the psychology of humans, Mythics and Nosophorus to have any real potency, but seeing as he considered himself very well-experienced, he could handle anything the Elders threw at him.

He hoped.

In an eerily identical way, the three Elders' heads turned the exact same way as the sound of Violet and Nyx rushing from the room alerted their attention. Alexander heaved his bruised body to his feet, concentrating on what he wanted to happen. He was feeling a certain connection of aggression and violence toward a certain other Nosophorus around his age. He looked at Liam, amethyst eyes narrowing in concentration…

And all of a sudden, Liam gave a panicked shriek as he was lifted into the air. The Elders, like animals, were attuned carefully to every sound, and whirled around to find its source.

This was when Alexander opted to do something incredibly and mind-numbingly brave, but also painfully and exceedingly stupid. He admitted to not putting a whole lot of thought into the maneuver, but he could not deny how inexplicably buzzy it felt to slam into the Elder, head on and growling.

He was easily pried off the back of the one, and slammed back down to the floor. Alexander squeezed his eyes shut, glad he had gotten his moment to be the hero.

But knowing it had been his last.

_See you around, Nyx,_ he projected in his head, much like he had so long ago with Isabel, asking to become a member of their incredible school.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000(page break indeficiencies...)

Violet learned something very important in the few moments they had to bolt out of the house and take to the sky. There was only so much a body could withstand before it simply wouldn't work. She couldn't lift her arms higher than a scant forty five degrees. How was she supposed to wingband?

"Give them to me," Nyx ordered, already snatching the black cuffs out of her hand and strapping them onto her arms. Violet didn't bother mentioning that wingbanding was much harder than it looked, that it would be hell for her since she didn't have any kind of anti-gravity to help lift her weight, and that without a fall to get started, it would be close to impossible for her to get herself and Violet airborne. Violet didn't mention it because she knew this was their only chance.

Nyx twisted the wingbands on, grunting under the weight of herself and Violet riding piggy-back on top of her. After crucial seconds, Nyx had only managed to end up hanging.

"Turn them off," Violet ordered. "Screw all these Nosophorus tricks. We're running."

Nyx had never heard such a good idea in her life.

They hit the ground with a thunk, immediately scrambling to their feet and rushing forward. Nyx had come to the conclusion that there was a certain cure to being leeched off of by a Nosophorus, something that was only just beginning to occur to her as she ran for her ever loving life, half-blind and scared witless. Breaking that bond over her own emotions required her to feel something fresh and intense. At first, it was getting angry at Violet that had saved her. Sure… the flower helped. Her fury had kept her alive long enough to get the flower, though.

Now, the only thing keeping her alive was her fear. The terror of what would happen in she were caught, what Alexander was going through right now, the impossibility of them truly getting away… it was breaking all the confines Violet had just put on her emotions, replenishing everything that was just taken away.

She had to hold onto Violet's shoulder as they ran, still barely able to see, but just because Violet led her away from anything like trees or cars, didn't mean she was capable of steering clear of ditches, sticks or rocks. Nyx ended up completely destroying her feet, preferring to listen to the tendons in her ankles pop and strain as her feet rolled over loose pebbles, then risk precious moments in falling and getting back to her feet.

S_ee you around, Nyx_.

It sounded like Alexander.

He sounded like he was saying good-bye. For good.

Nyx dug her heels in the ground, screeching to a sudden halt. For a couple stomach twisting seconds, Violet's arm escaped her grasp, not realizing she had stopped. "What's the matter?" Violet panted, breathless, confused by her sudden stop.

"Alexander is in trouble."

"No shit Sherlock! He put himself in the trouble." Violet cried, chest heaving for oxygen.

Nyx bit her lip, torn with a sudden moment of inexplicable compassion. She hated Alexander, nothing he could say or do would ever make her forgive him for what he did to her, but she understood the sacrifice he had just made, standing between them and the Elders.

She couldn't leave him behind.

"I'm going back for him. Keep running until you find somewhere safe. When you can, get to Haven." Nyx released Violet's shoulder, stumbling her way back up the path, trying to find the way she came amongst the blurry half pictures.

Violet made a sound of frustration behind her, grabbed her hand and tugged her forward, back towards the house, Alexander and almost certain death.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"What is the name of the Nosophorus child with the Mythic?" the Elder asked.

Alexander opened his eyes slowly, and found to his relief, he was not dead yet. Score! "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Violet!" Liam shouted, from somewhere in the rafters. "Her name is Violet! You have to go help her! She's alone with that Mythic—"

Alexander stuffed his fist in his mouth to swallow back another raw swear word. The habit was just getting out of control. "Will you _shut up_!"

The three hooded figures passed a brief look at each other, and nodded in sync. The Elder who stood closest to the door, suddenly whisked away, leaving a rush of moving air in wake of the departure. The leader of the little group tilted its head upward, focusing on the wildly spinning Liam. Instantly, he came drifting carefully back to the ground.

The Elder stepped forward, head lowering so Alexander could feel that impenetrably cold stare, though he couldn't see it through the deep folds of the hood. "We thank you for the completion of your mission. The D. Connor Institute is closed, the Mythics disbanding. Your clearance to remain in the school has been revoked, and your time-switching skill has been returned."

It was like a punch in the stomach. Alexander felt physical nausea. He had not only destroyed the lives of so many people, but now he had no way to go back and fix it.

"Thank you for your call," the Elder said to Liam, inclining his head in a slight bow of thanks.

And then they were gone.

Alexander managed to push himself to his feet, under the weight of guilt crashing in on him. He took one look at Liam, who was breathing a slight sigh of relief, and felt the unmistakable urge to kill.

It was like being buzzy, but much _much _worse.

He clenched his hands into fists, resisting the urge to pummel him into the ground. He spoke, his words forced and hard under the restraint of self-control. "Before this is over, you will feel the way I do, right now, at this very moment," he said, glaring with eyes that were turning the color of dark amber honey around the pupils. "I promise you that."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Violet was not sure what had just happened. They were running full out as fast as their legs would carry them back towards the house. Then, without warning, there was a rush of air, and Nyx's hand was no longer on her shoulder.

There was the brief sound of her tapering scream. And then silence.

_Breathe, _Violet ordered herself, willing her heart to stop stammering and her mind to cease spinning. First thing she wanted to do was run as fast as she could in the direction she thought the Elder had taken Nyx, but she forced herself to stop. There was no way she would be able to keep up with something like that. She had to get Alexander, and see if he knew where they would take her.

She just hoped he hadn't already joined Nyx.

She didn't remember running back to the house. She knew she had to have, for when she finally returned in to the house, locating Alexander and Liam, and tried to speak, no sound came out.

Alexander stepped up, grabbing her shoulders to keep her from collapsing to the floor. "Violet, where's Nyx."

Pant. Wheeze. Gasp.

"_Where is Nyx_?"

"They've… taken…her."

Alexander released her so fast, Violet wobbled on the spot. Liam rushed up behind her to keep her from falling. Alexander breathed deeply. "Violet, I need you to switch us back to your time."

"We can save her, right?" Violet panted, leaning her back against Liam's chest out of necessity and necessity alone. She hadn't forgotten he was the one who betrayed them.

"Yes, but we can't do it alone."

**Sorry about the infinite o's as page breaks... we won't ask what my computers deal is. **


	26. Chapter 26 Damage Control

**Yea... its been a while. I had some serious writer's block, not to mention a lot of general stress from everything else. My life, the soap opera. That's all I can say. Thank Evanescence and Amy Lee's incredible song lyrics and musical talents for this chapter, because the new CD defintley got the creative juices flowing. **

Chapter 26— Damage Control

Isabel located Tyler, hard at work in the office. He was busy shouting orders, directing confused, scared and angry looking students here and there, making sure everyone was accounted for and no one was injured. Everyone, student and faculty alike, had to register their name with him, and then have a health scan done by Epione. Severe injuries she healed on the spot, but everything else she just diagnosed to the school physicians who took them to the infirmary. After being registered, everyone was asked to retire to the auditorium (the only room big enough to fit all the students and faculty) to wait for further instruction.

"Hey," Isabel muttered softly, coming up behind him quietly enough that he didn't realize she was there until she spoke.

Tyler turned briefly, a cold look in his eyes, then refocused his attention on the student in front of him. "Everything will be explained when you go to the auditorium. For the time being we must ask you to not contact your families because it is not safe for you outside the school."

"Did you fix the gate?" Isabel asked, closing her eyes as she tried to fathom the incomprehensible amount of shit they were in.

"Yes," he said, curtly.

"How many missing?"

"Eris is gone. Julia, Mike, Hannah and Kyle were abducted, but they returned a few minutes ago. No one can find Amanda or Claire, but Julia said they left when the fighting broke out. Ashley is tracking them to make sure they're okay." Ashley was one of the Orphans, and had an uncanny knack of finding people, especially Mythics. "We're also missing Nyx, Violet and that new student… what's his name?"

"Alexander?" Isabel suggested, innocently, barely resisting the urge to shudder as she remembered his harsh amethyst eyes.

"Yes, no one has seen them since just after the Splat game. Apparently there was some problems with the after-game silliness. Well, to put it plainly, it was no longer just silliness. People got hurt."

"How did this get so messed up?" Tyler did not answer, continuing to work diligently and unceasingly. Isabel nodded, slowly, processing and planning, a frown creasing her brow. "Did we get rid of the media?"

Tyler glanced up, once more shooting Isabel with a cold stare. If he hoped to get some kind of reaction out of her, he ended up disappointed. The girl didn't even blink. "They can't get onto the grounds, and we've stopped all incoming and outgoing traffic except for what's entirely necessary. The founders are going to have to speak with them as early as possible, so people can start understanding."

Isabel gave him a surprised look. "What are you talking about? Mythics can't be public. It would kill us. We need to start erasing memories."

Tyler raised his eyebrows at her, amused despite his anger. "Use your brain Isabel. Even if we can find all the people who have heard about it, and by now that's the entire world, how would we erase all those memories? We need to handle it by coming out to the open. Enough hiding."

Isabel, whose entire life depended on hiding, couldn't help but think this was a very bad idea, but knew that she couldn't tackle this problem head on. It had to be taken in pieces. "Okay, I'm going to start making phone calls. In the meantime… well, I'm sorry. I know you feel like we leave you out, but we could never have gotten as far as we have without you."

He glanced up, the hardened fury still not leaving his eyes. "Do you love me?"

Isabel closed her eyes, trying to find a way to voice her thoughts without hurting him. It was not a skill she was particularly known for. "No," she said slowly. "I think I've just wanted someone to love for all this time. I'm sorry." She left without another word, knowing there was nothing left she could say that would make him forgive her.

It didn't matter anyway. She had a new mission in life, and that was to find David.

After all, he was alive.

* * *

"What happened to you guys? Where's Nyx? Who's he?" Epione had been lilting off questions for a while now.

"Epione!" Violet snapped, holding out her arms, so she could see the severe bruising. "A little help?" She wanted to feel bad for snapping, but it was hard to when she was in pain, completely exhausted and missing a best friend.

Epione put her hands on Violet's wrist, and immediately, a cool, healing rush flowed through her, the pain and stiffness easing from her muscles. When Epione spoke, it was in a hurried whisper, well aware that Tyler was within listening distance. "What is going on? Why aren't you registering? Everyone thinks your missing."

"It's too hard to explain right now, and I don't have the time. Do you know where John is?"

Epione gave her a look as if to say 'be serious, does anyone know where anyone is?' but answered as best as she could. "One of the founders will have to be in the auditorium to calm all the students down, and since I just saw Isabel go off in the other direction, you have a fifty-fifty shot it will be John. Now please tell me what is going on?"

"Nyx has been kidnapped, and I don't know what to do." The words came out a blank. Violet realized a bit more urgency in her voice might have been appropriate, but found herself physically incapable of feeling panic. Instead, she was filled with a frozen sense of purpose. They _must _find the founders, and _had_ to save Nyx. There was just no doubt or question about it.

Epione swallowed the remaining questions lingering on her tongue with difficulty, simply because she knew there were better people to ask them. She wouldn't waste precious minutes with her squabbling when she knew there was nothing she could do. Her place was here, right now, healing and helping. "When you find her, get me immediately," Epione stated as she finished with Violet's arms, drawing her hands back carefully. She would be sure to save as much of her healing gift as possible for when they returned, for she had a funny feeling that Nyx would need it.

"Thanks, Epione," Violet said, with a nod and tight smile. Epione wasn't sure why, but for some reason, she couldn't resist the urge to shudder at Violet's grin. It was different than she remembered, harder and fiercer, more an exposure of glittery white teeth than an actual display of happiness. As she walked away briskly, Alexander and the unfamiliar boy following in her wake, Epione still couldn't identify why she felt so uncomfortable in those three's presence.

Of one thing she was sure though. Violet was no longer the same girl.

* * *

Violet looked briefly over her shoulder to check that Alexander and Liam were still following her. Alexander she wasn't too worried about—he would follow her to the end of the world if it meant that Nyx would be saved—but she did not trust Liam's loyalty what so ever. She knew the only reason he wasn't destroying every Mythic he saw was because his only way back home was her. As it was, the scowl of disgust was distinct on his face, as was the charming way he would flinch and growl whenever a Mythic student came too close.

She wasn't really worried about what Liam would do though. If it came to a fight, she was certain that she could control him. It was not over-confidence. It was the sheer matter of fact. Liam was beginning to feel the twinge from withdrawal, while Violet was still buzzy from Nyx. It was not the same as when she had leeched the first time, where she had felt fearless and, if she allowed herself to admit it, very stupid. She still felt that predatory edge in all of her movements, but this time, she wasn't primarily thinking as a predator.

"Why did you bring me here?" Liam hissed through clenched teeth. His long pale hands were clenched into tight fists.

"Couldn't exactly leave you there with the way you've screwed us over already," Alexander pointed out, innocently. He was taking enjoyment in Liam's discomfort. It was the only thinking keeping his mind away from Nyx.

"How can you stand walking among them? Violet? How do they know you?"

"Shut up," Violet snapped, coldly. "If you want to go back then you'll do everything I say, do you understand?"

Liam halted suddenly, sinking down to a frighteningly poised stance. "Are you blackmailing me?"

Violet whirled around, purple fire in her squinted eyes. Without hesitation, she stepped up to him, grabbing his chin with barred fingernails, roughly pulling his face to eye level. "Let me make sure you understand something. Nyx means more to me than you could ever understand. The only reason you're here now is because I don't have time to comprehend how deeply you've betrayed me. Do yourself a favor, and don't remind me." She released his face and continued her brisk pace forward, leaving a dumbstruck Alexander and Liam in her wake. "Follow!" she snapped, and they hurried to catch up with her.

She wasn't sure what she expected to be going on in the auditorium, but complete and utter chaos she sort of hoped against. She had no such luck. A pang of pain hit her when she recalled that Nyx would be perfectly at home in all this insanity, and would be able to recognize the patterns in it enough to find her way to the goal… in this case Raven, standing at the podium.

Alexander raised his eyebrows dubiously, knowing they had to get through hundreds of scared, angry and out-of-control Mythics to get even close to speaking with Raven. "After you," he said, beckoning her forward.

Violet squinted at the problem, beginning to break it down into smaller variables. She was here, and wanted to be there. The distance between here and there was being blocked by approximately twenty Mythics from this angle, though there were more if she cared to calculate the circumference. Still, the shortest way to get from here to there was a straight line, so…

It was as simple as that. The theory had just barely played itself out in her head before a clear straight path opened up for her, free of people, leading directly to Raven. Alexander raised his eyebrows. He might be able to tweak the position of one or two people, but she just pushed dozens of Mythics out of the way with no more than a little thought. He was impressed.

"Make sure he doesn't go anywhere," Violet ordered Alexander, speaking of Liam. Then she bolted through the recently made straight path, using a little bit of anti-gravity to make her cross the distance in three steps.

"Raven!" Violet shouted, getting the teacher's attention.

Raven turned, about to feed the same line about sitting down and letting her explain, but the words froze when she saw who it was.

And how she had changed.

"Violet?" Pause. "What… happened?"

And just like that, everything broke. All that freezing cold numbness, the sense of distinct and dangerous purpose shattered, collapsed. Violet found herself falling, infinitely falling through endless darkness. And screaming. It was too much.

"Violet, what happened?" Raven repeated, and then observed the situation. "Where's Nyx?"

Nyx. Why was it every time she heard the name, it was like a physical stab in the chest, like someone was carving out her soul with a turkey knife. Nyx was her soul twin. They might be completely different, fight and squabble like no one's business, but they still always protected each other. Violet tried to figure out what she would do if it turned out she was too late (and when her cursedly logic brain calculated the odds, she knew it was) her mind drew a blank as to what she would do without her. How was she supposed to live on if Nyx wasn't there?

She took a few deep breaths. Had to get herself under control. "I'm not a Mythic, I'm a—"

"Nosophorus," Raven answered, hurriedly pushing her along.

Violet blinked a few times, wondering how long they had known. "And I got us stuck in this place where—"

"Time stands still."

"And the Elders, the sort of police of this place, kidnapped Nyx."

Raven closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again, absorbing the information. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they're not particularly friendly with Mythics."

Violet silently thanked any higher power that existed that the founders could no longer be surprised by anything, that they were as intelligent as they were battle-hardened. "Precisely."

Raven pulled out her cell phone and pressed a key for speed dial. "I'm needed here now. Get John, he seems to understand more about this than any of us. Hello, John?" she directed into the phone. "Where are you? Okay, I'm sending over Violet and company. Nyx is… you know? Okay, they're on their way." She hung up the phone and pocketed it once more. "He's with Isabel in her office. They're conducting an interview, but he said you can interrupt." She paused, a thought occurring to her. There were outsiders in the school now, a carefully monitored group of media that was here by Isabel's clearance. "If any humans get in your way, move them," Raven said simply, and then turned to face the mob of Mythics who all wanted answers.

She did, of course, cheat, becoming Siren and making all of her students sit down and shut up.

By the time Violet returned to Alexander and Liam, she had reclaimed the cold sense of purpose. Without even a word, she snapped her fingers for them to follow.

They did.

* * *

"And how do you justify lying to all the parents of these students about the nature of this school?"

Isabel decided she hated the media, and she especially hated this brunette reporter. She supposed on different circumstances, she would like the sharp and witty female, but at this moment, she really didn't need it. "I would say that—" she paused, looking up as she heard a scuffle from outside. Distantly, she heard shouts. "Now what? John?"

"Got it," John said, pushing himself up and opening the door.

"Get off of me you insufferable bitch! Don't you understand how much pain I'm in! He's only human!"

In the front chamber to the office, where a few of the technicians for the news crew had been working, where three teenagers who all shared a startlingly similar thin frame and white blond hair. John recognized Alexander and Violet, but only knew the third one from his visions, the one who had Violet clung to his back pulling him backwards.

"Liam! Stop it! You're only hurting yourself!" Her fiery purple eyes met the panicked gazes of the three humans. "Well don't just stand there! Go!"

"Violet!" John shouted. "What is going on?"

He stepped forward, and then took a nauseous step back as he was slapped in the face with the emotions of the unfamiliar boy. Rage and pain were the most distinct, but there was also queasy disgust and fear. Lots of fear. "Isabel!" he shouted, behind his shoulder, well aware that that annoying camera had not stopped running.

"He's going to leech off those humans," Violet gasped, breathless from holding the writhing Liam in a chokehold, away from harm. Alexander had him in the front, shoving his shoulder into his stomach, pushing him backwards as Violet hooked her feet around Liam's body, making it impossible for him to throw her off.

"It _hurts_! Don't you understand that! _Let me go_!"

One of his fists flailed backwards, clocking Violet in the nose hard enough that she yelped and drew back. Liam slammed Alexander out of the way and bounded forward, hands outstretched desperately for the nearest human.

The secretary desk in the corner suddenly slid in the path, and he tripped, sprawling on top of it. He wasn't entirely sure where the ropes came from, but suddenly his arms and legs were bound. He could feel them hardening. When he looked down, he was surprised to find stone circlets around his arms and legs. He was immobile.

And still in pain.

"Make it stop!" he screamed, and Violet shuddered. She remembered this.

"What's wrong with him," Isabel asked, urgently.

"Its withdrawal," Violet explained, breathing hard, blood from her nose dribbling over her face. She was getting a lot of face injuries lately. "No, not that kind of withdrawal," she said, annoyed, when she noticed the camera suddenly pointed in her direction. "What's with them anyway?"

"Ignore them," Isabel suggested, completely void of humor.

"He hasn't leeched in ages, and we get addicted to it. If we stop… well our body still wants it."

"Leeching? Is that what you call it?" She found this name highly appropriate. She shook the arbitrary thought from her head. "How long does it last, and is there any way we can stop it."

"Don't let him leech off a human. It doesn't hurt them, but it hurts us. It stops us from thinking right. Leeching off Mythics reverses the effects, but it—"

Isabel's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Alexander explained for her sake. "Leeching off a Mythic takes away the buzziness. Or at least, most of it. We still feel that in-control rush sort of thing, but it stops us from having to leech. It would reverse his withdrawal."

Isabel paused a moment, biting her lip. "Would he remember his past life, before he died?"

Neither Alexander nor Violet questioned how she knew this. Alexander shook his head. "I haven't, and neither has Violet."

Isabel shook her head, somehow going into a distant world outside the nosy camera and screaming Nosophorus. "He definitely remembered me," she breathed, trying to understand.

"Isn't there anything we can do to help him?" John asked, his voice tight with pain. He was probably feeling everything Liam was.

"Unless you want him to leech off you," Violet said. "There's no way he's leeching off a human, though. He has to start thinking again."

"Don't let him leech off you," Isabel snapped, and that was the end of it. "Besides this, was seems to be the problem. Raven said it was urgent."

Violet nodded, and rushed once more into the explanation. "There's many more Nosophorus than just us, and some of them are much more powerful. Its like… they're buzzy on crack or something. They have Nyx, though, and they hate Mythics and… and…" That crumbling, falling feeling came again. She resisted it. "I don't know what to do."

Isabel immediately took action. She turned to the reporter. "I'm sorry, but as you can see, we have other problems here. We will conclude this interview at a later date."

"Miss Noctrice, how can you justify the actions of these students, trying to attack us, and you treating them thusly?" This girl was just not giving up. Any other time she would admire this trait, but right now, it was annoying.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "Okay, let me put this as plainly as possible. These children were born with strong, unimaginable powers, but they were not born with the ability to control them. It is not an easy thing to control these powers, but that's what we do here, along with giving them the ability to use these powers for good. What you've seen here is nothing more than their daily fight for control, something they will all struggle with for years before it is achieved. Alone, they might hurt someone, but here, we create a safe place for them to learn and grow without fear. Now, as I said before, I have bigger problems to deal with, and my students need me. Good day."

"But Miss Noctrice," the reporter started once more.

John leaned forward and whispered lightly into the girl's ear. "I do believe that was a dismissal."

They left in a huff, and the rest of retired once more to Isabel's office. They left Liam outside, trying their very hardest to ignore his screams and grunts of pain. "What can we do?" Isabel asked, once they were situated.

Violet shook her head. "Everything about them is so wrong. It's like, like…"

"Unnatural," Alexander suggested with a shudder.

"They move too fast, too jerky, and their senses are hyper-aware." She paused a moment, remembering something from earlier. "They can't sense Mythics though, can they?"

Alexander shook his head. "They only sense other Nosophorus or their prey. Mythics are neither. You're, no offense or anything, kind of gross."

John neglected to comment. "Violet, you are able to switch back and forth between Still-time, right?" Violet nodded, absently, resting her chin in her hands. "But you have no idea where they could have taken Nyx."

Violet shook her head. "I still can't remember anything from before I turned thirteen, John. It's a complete blank."

"Alexander?" John asked, hopefully.

Alexander could give them nothing positive. "The Elders usually come to you. They're not really someone you go looking for."

A thought occurred to Violet. "What about that thing Liam did? He called them and they came. How do they do that?"

"You could do it, too," Alexander said. "We all can. I used to think it was for security, but now I know it's for control."

Isabel stood up, beginning to pace, her hands clenched into tight fists. "Is there anyway we could set up a trap, that we could follow them back to their headquarters if you called them?"

"No," Violet and Alexander said at the same time. "They're too fast," Violet explained. "Raven wouldn't even be able to keep up with them."

"And we don't even know if there is more than one place she could be taken." John pointed out, miserably.

"Well, if this Still-time is completely parallel to ours, it would have to be something we knew," Isabel started.

"Somewhere in the entire world," Violet cried. "If there's a Nosophorus for every Mythic dead, then there are hundreds of Nosophorus. I was in Still-time for ages and all I saw were a handful of them. Still-time would have to stretch across the entire world then. It's the only way we would fit."

"So then where in the world is Nyx?" Alexander cried, frustrated.

The door suddenly creaked open, and a very flushed, shaky Liam stumbled in. He looked around, his eyes a bleary in-between of almond and amethyst. "I think," he rasped, and Isabel jumped up to get him some water. "I can help you."


	27. Chapter 27 Trust

**Happy holidays everyone (that's me being culturally aware :-D). As it is the holdiday season, and I have no homework to do because the semester is over, I plan to be woking hardcore on my various unfinished writing projects. What this means to you is that you will finally get the ending to Haven. WOOHOO!**

**So, here's just a silly little list of the stuff I've learned at college. This is stuff you're not going to get in your orientation packets, so take notes.**

**-If you want to eat in your room, you need a bowl. If the bowl looks clean, you can use it. **

**-If the bowl doesn't look clean, just lick it and refer above. **

**-Cranium parties are GOD**

**-Mocha frapecinos are your friend for finals week **

**-ALWAYS HAVE A CHOCOLATE STASH!**

**-If you need to pull an all-nighter, a couple shots of espresso at nine thirty at night will do the trick **

**-Sleep is overrated**

**-Naps are the OTHER god **

**-Bring a coloring book and crayons. Sounds stupid, but when you need a break from homework, coloring is quite relaxing**

**-Bring stuff to put on your walls!! **

**-Adult moments are required. This means you will need to get a Giant Card, Blockbuster Membership, and pay for your own gas and car insurance.**

**-Campus jobs pay shit. **

**-Save all nickles, dimes and pennies. You're in college, you're poor. **

**-All Christmas presents must be paid for with the buy back money from your textbooks (p.s. this is, if your lucky, five percent of what you paid for them) **

**-Find a good roomate.**

**-If above fails, find good friends who will let you live in their room.**

**-Learn to be ingenuic with money. A little has to go a loooong way. **

**-If you don't want to get fat, FIND THE GYM! **

**-If your majoring in education... don't go to parties with alcohol. Even if you're not drinking, you'll be thrown out of your major, and then you're basically screwed. **

**-Sexual innuendo can be made from ANYTHING**

**-Curses are a lot more frequent than you might have guessed. **

**-Boys are complicated.**

**These are the real things you need to know for college. :-D Hope it helped! Read, enjoy, review. Please and thankyou. **

Chapter 27—Trust

Nyx took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm herself and not panic. She had been trained to do this a million times at school, and she was definitely one of the best at it. It was admittedly not the best psychiatrically to push down all the unnecessary emotions of fear down and away until a more appropriate time to face them… but given the circumstances, she was sure her psyche would understand.

She let out the breath, but it shuddered in her lungs like an epileptic rabbit. Twitchy. Jumpy. Seizing. She held it a moment, trying to get it under control and slowly breathed out again.

It was like dispelling everything, letting it crawl and slither off her skin and into the dark nothingness around her, only to have it rebounded on her thrice as hard. Tremors convulsed her body, her breath catching, skipping and hiccupping. She was sure she would still be frightened if she could see where she was, who she was with (if there was anyone near her at all) and how bad the situation was. That was preferable to this, though.

She couldn't see.

Her body was still there, she was certain of it. As she hugged her arms tightly around her knees to control the wild tremors, she was aware of the presence of her body. Her lungs ached, her muscles were tight, and she was pretty certain her eyes were stretched wide. She could see nothing though.

There were the flashes of color, of course. At first she had thought they were actually windows or doors, even people, so she crawled blindly toward them, only to disorient herself further when they disappeared. In the back of her mind, she recalled one of her psychology lessons. With such a lack of visual stimulus, her brain was creating its own.

As she trembled and gasped she made note of the patterns. Falling green waves, and purple explosions of stars… if she concentrated hard enough, she could turn the red spikes and yellow fuzz into actual images. There was a banana, a pair of slippers, an orange cat…

A pair of intense amethyst eyes.

She screamed, a sound ripped from her throat and through her head sending crawling fingers of sound down her spine. Shocks of pain raced up her arms as her hands struck the floor. Again, again, and again.

She might have been screaming words. It seemed doubtable though, for the words she needed, the ones that could even remotely touch upon this and now and her utter helplessness were completely elusive.

The scream suddenly broke, shattering in her voice box as if a tangible knife had sliced it open. Nyx clutched her throat, eyes widening in panic. Where was her voice?

Breathe racked her chest, so deeply she actually felt oxygen scraping her throat. When she felt hands rest on either side of her face, she all but shot out of her skin. A soundless scream passed her lips as she scrambled mindlessly away from the dead-cold touch. There was no way she was thinking clearly, but basic instinct of touch, the amount of pain it had caused her was still present. Touch was bad. Touch equaled pain. Emptiness.

"Violet," a speaker stated, in that same cold and unnatural voice that triggered nausea deep in Nyx's stomach.

_Violet will come, she will save me. She's going to come_, Nyx chanted deliriously to herself, born from the single word the Elder spoke.

"From where?" The voice, it spoke again. She couldn't be certain of where it was coming from, for it seemed to come at her from all sides at once, surrounding and ambushing, waiting steady for the attack.

_Haven… they're coming from Haven. They're going to save me. I am not going to die. They are going to save me. They're going to bring help from Haven. I AM NOT GOING TO DIE! _The shakes started again, racing up her spine and down her arms, thick, deep tremors convulsing every muscle.

"You are wrong," said the voice, once more.

Without warning, without even being given a chance to fight, to scream, to cry, to beg… without even a voice to call for help with, hands came down on her face, her neck, her arms.

"Good-bye young Mythic."

With those words, the familiar feeling of breaking, spilling and bleeding came back. Only this time, it didn't end. It wouldn't stop. This time, she had no words to speak a thirteen letter word, no friend who possessed strength of conscience above strength of instinct… this time there was no end, but the end. She had no ally, no one to help her.

She was going to die.

And it was with a strange sense of relief, that she felt the pain slowly begin to ease away, and smoky shadows of unconsciousness fog her brain. She closed her eyes that could no longer see, breathed in a breath that no longer seemed necessary, and listened as the panicked and wild stammer of her heart slowed, steadied, deepened.

Until it didn't beat at all.

"We can't all go, because there is a good chance that none of us will come back." It was these words, the harshly reality-glimpsing words, which truly put everything into perspective for Violet. She was glad there was no way she could be left behind; she was the only one who could get them into Still-time in the first place.

The founders were not happy, though. For once, they were forced to separate. The need was too great in too many areas to be able to stand as a united front again. Someone had to stay to mind the school in all of its chaos, someone else had to handle any other outside threats that came their way. Only one of them would be able to join the rescue mission in to Still-time.

It was none other than Isabel.

Violet and Alexander stood close, looking up from the outside of a very familiar set of gates. "Haven?" Violet breathed out loud, barely letting her voice be heard in the freakishly quiet Still-time. "The Elders are centered in Haven?"

Alexander shook his head. "How much do we trust Liam?" he asked, though now was a distinctly bad time for his doubt.

"Not at all," Violet assured him, and Alexander was relieved. He knew best how emotion could cloud judgment, and it was obvious, if she didn't have feelings for Liam, that he was attracted to her. Violet seemed to want nothing to do with it, though, which Alexander couldn't help but think was a very good thing. Liam had been all too willing to help them. With or without the buzziness gone, his quick change of alliance was suspicious

"I think he's telling us the truth about Haven, though," Violet whispered.

Alexander shook his head. "We were here during Still-time before, and it was absolutely dead. No one would go around here because of all the Mythics. So long as you're still buzzy, it makes you sick."

A strange look passed Violet's eyes as she gave a distinctly disturbing side-long glance in his direction. "Precisely," she whispered. "Now come on."

So without any further prelude, they twisted on their wingbands and shot into the air, right behind the already gently circling Liam. "What took your so long?" Liam hissed, impatiently.

Violet and Alexander resisted the urge to look at each other knowingly, to give any sort of signal that they did not believe a word he was saying. "I had a little trouble getting in the air," Violet said, innocently, a perfectly reasonable excuse seeing as she was still so new to wingbanding.

"Okay, well we don't have much time. Isabel is already in there."

Of course Isabel was already in there. Isabel would be incapable of wingbanding because none of her gifts allowed anti-gravity or near-weightlessness. She would not need to leave the school in order to get the wingbands. Leaving the principal and leader of the greatest movement of Mythics in history alone and blind in Still-time, in a building full of Nosophorus.

Violet and Alexander put a little extra force on their wingbands to get them over the grounds faster.

Isabel took a few deep breaths to calm herself down, then closed her eyes and opened her mouth. All Mythics had certain advantages that were bestowed with their powers, and Isabel possessed an unusual knack for taste. Her eyes were already bad, she barely used them anymore. She was more than capable of finding her way around by tasting the air.

She had never left from her office, so surely and confidently (of course she had memorized the number of steps from the doorway to her desk, from the desk to the bookshelf, from the bookshelf to the window and then back to the door…. And she could do it all in the dark as well.) that she did not trip or stumble, or even hold her hands out like a child playing blind man's bluff. To the desk, second drawer from the top, she carefully reached in and pulled out a very special pair of sunglasses.

These were a particularly clever invention of Tyler and hers, turning the very same technology of night-vision goggles small enough to be confined within a set of sunglasses. She slipped them on her eyes, hoping against hope that even though her eyes were no designed to see in this strange, lightless world, her gadgets would help.

Sure enough, slipping them over her eyes and turning them on, her complete blindness became nothing more irksome than her usual difficulty with sight, something she had become quite accustomed to over the years.

With this mild form of sight, she scanned her office for anything unusual. Except for the strange, colorless look to everything, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Satisfied that, in this room at least, there was nothing, she opened another drawer, strapping a black harness around her waist. In the many compartments and pockets of this strange looking belt was a basic mission-kit she had designed, that every single member of faculty had in their desk, and were skillfully trained to use.

Without another pause, she changed. Standing there was no longer the long, slender frame of the familiar teacher, but the dangerous serpentine frame of Medusa. She pushed her glasses off her nose, once more met with blindness, and attempted to use her stone-glare.

She felt sweet stone forming on her tongue, but without sight, she could not direct it. Putting the glasses back on, she tried through their thick lenses. Now, even though she could see, the glasses stopped her focus. This was potentially problematic. The vibrant snakes on her head writhed in agreement.

It was not the end of the world though, and she had many other advantages other than the physical ones of her second form. Soundlessly, she left her office, quickly scanning the next room.

"_Isabel_," hissed a voice, painfully familiar.

Medusa froze, the muscles in her shoulders and neck tight with dread, her snakes hissing in trepidation. She knew that voice.

"_Isabel_," the voice repeated. She spun around quickly, trying to find its source. There was a time when she trusted that voice more than life, where anything it said she would do without question. That was a long time ago, though. Her had been broken when he left.

"Show yourself," Medusa said, quietly, but firmly, her voice belying her fear.

And just like that, he was right in front of her, as if he had always been there, his skin pale as the moon, his hair just as light. "Welcome to hell," he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

Medusa kept her hands clenched firmly as her sides, willing herself not to hyperventilate. She was not ignorant enough to take that extended hand. She remembered only too well what happened the last time he had touched her. "What do you want?" she whispered, not allowing her voice to above the lightest breath.

"Don't bother keeping your voice down," he said, dropping his hand. "They already know you're here. Calm down," he insisted, a small smirk lifting up the pale corners of his lips, noticing the flash of panic in Isabel's eyes. "They won't come for you."

Medusa glared. "Why?"

"Because they know that I'll take care of you," David said, a slow, hungry grin stretching across his lips.

Medusa leaped backwards, one of the serpents on her head lunging toward David. She wasn't sure if the snake missed, or perhaps her venom wasn't toxic in the bloodstream of a Nosophorus, but the wiry, strong frame of the man she once loved slammed into her, pinning her to the wall. His forearm was wedged beneath her throat, and though she tucked her chin down, so he couldn't choke her, her hands and feet were completely immobile, and stone glares wouldn't work.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, changing out of her Mythic form, and reclaiming her humanistic features.

"I'm saving you," he whispered in her ear. "Trust me." He reached up with his free hand, and lightly brushed his fingertips over the serpentine curves of her cheek. She visibly flinched from his touch, but he simply rested his palm easily along her neck. "You see?"

And suddenly, she did see. No pain, no feeling like something was being stolen from her. It was just touch—cool, soft touch.

"Look at my eyes," he breathed.

Isabel managed to open her own eyes from the prepatory grimace, and saw eyes that were no longer an unnatural shade of amethyst.

"I have no reason for what I did, other than I remembered you. I didn't remember how I knew you, but I knew at one time, I did know you."

Isabel nodded slowly. "Yes, yes you did."

"And I died?" He was asking a question.

"Yes."

David held his hands on either side of Isabel's face, making sure she kept eye contact with him. "You were able to bring me back. Why didn't you?" He paused, looking away from her covered eyes. "You could have saved me from this."

Isabel shook her head. "You wouldn't have been alive, not like you were. No one should bring people back from the dead."

His grip slid down to her shoulders, tightening, his nails sinking into her skin. "You could have saved me from this," he hissed, his voice increasing with intensity.

Now it was Isabel who looked away. "I'm sorry."

He released her suddenly, backing away quickly, and beginning to circle her, like a tiger stalking its prey. No matter if the effects of the buzziness had been reversed from leeching off her, his instincts were still that of a predator. "I loved you, didn't I?"

All Isabel could do was nod, swallowing back the tears that threatened to break free.

"And you… well, I guess it's obvious you didn't love me. You let me go."

"No, it wasn't like that! I—"

"Quiet!" he roared. "You let me become this, this monster. I've suffered for years, with half memories and somewhat truths, and all I can remember is you! _Why did you let me die!_"

Isabel forced herself to think, though sobs were freely racking her chest. She was talking to him, to David. The wound from his death had never really healed, but she had grown accustomed to bearing the pain. Now, it was as if it had just happened and her endurance had never been grown. The pain was fresh and new and blistering. "How do you remember?"

"That's right, you don't know. You thought that all Nosophorus have no memory of their past life. I suppose I'm a little unique. What was I, again? Oh, yes, Minotaur. We all thought that my only gift was my strength. But, no, that was impossible since everyone else has two, even three gifts at a time. Apparently, that planning part of my mind was another gift of Minotaur. We can find our way out of any maze, literal or, in this case, figurative. My memory was just another maze."

Isabel closed her eyes, trying to reclaim her focus and push away the pain. She was not here to reunite with David. She was here to save her student. "If you can find your way out of any maze, do you know where Nyx is?"

A slow smile crept across his face. "You're too late, Isabel. She's already dead."


	28. Chapter 28 Evil

**I realize I've lost a lot of readers due to my long stretch between updates (again, I'm very sorry. My transition to college was quite smooth... except for the fact that I no longer had time to write) but to those of you who have stuck through this beast, I can't thank you enough. This is the last chapter, and I kindly ask that if you have not left a review yet, to please leave an over-all review now, as it is the last chance you'll have, and I really want to know what everyone thinks (even if its bad). **

**My next project won't be starting for a while, probably not until spring. Right now I'm concentrating on revising Mythics and Reunited, to make them unsucky enough for an agent to read. I'll be back around though, maybe posting a few random shorties if I feel like it. If anyone wants me to read and critique any of their posts (bearing in mind that I will give you a real critique, including the things you do wrong) just tell me. The first chance I get where I either have nothing to do and want to be productive, or everything to do and want to procrastinate, I'll leave you a review. **

**Anyway, happy reading! **

Chapter 28—Evil

They expected Liam to betray them. Between Violet's natural cleverness and Alexander's newfound cognition, they were not all together surprised when Liam closed his eyes when they stepped into the school, ready to call out that mental 9-1-1. Alexander passed a quick look to Violet, who quickly spun out a beautifully elegant theory of space and time, and all of a sudden, Liam froze.

His eyes darted quickly between Alexander and Violet. "Sorry, Liam," Violet whispered, softly. "We can't have any chances. You betrayed us once, you can do it again."

His eyes widened, as if he were trying to tell them something, though his vocal chords were incapable of the necessary function to do so.

"It really is better like this," Alexander said. "When we go back, you'll be unfrozen, and you'll have limited continued interaction with us. If we get caught, we'll be sentenced to death."

Without another word, they left him there, whisking through the colorless glow of their one-time sanctuary, in search of their friend.

Alexander called out a message to Isabel with his gifts. _We're in the east wing of the building. Liam won't be a threat. _

"Should we split up, maybe cover more ground?" Violet whispered.

Alexander shook his head. The two of them against one Elder wouldn't stand a chance. If they split up, it would be a death wish. "Safety in numbers," he concluded, resolutely. Without further question, he used his gifts to locate Nyx.

His gifts were focused around the connections between people. The stronger the connection, the easier it was to use his powers on them. Nyx might hate him, but it created an extremely strong bond between them. Finding her should be child's play.

His mind probed around gently the motionless corridors of the school, sweeping through lightless corners, and rushing around hidden crannies. His body relaxed and heart slowed as he searched, falling into the comfortable coma of his powers, those slim, vibrant bonds connecting him to the world.

A hand fell softly on his shoulder just as he felt a nudge of familiarity in his brain. "Alexander," someone whispered, and he opened his eyes drowsily to meet the tortured gray gaze of his principal. "It's too late, Alexander. She's gone."

Alexander ignored the distinct urge to vomit as he was brushed once more with the presence of someone, who was, at once, so familiar to him. "What have they done?"

* * *

Blink. Eyes fluttering madly to adjust. There was pain, starting in the stomach and slowly shuddering its way to the fingertips, like a slow acting poison, lethargically destroying every last cell it passed.

The pale creature pushed herself up to a sitting position, white-blond hair fluttering into her starving eyes. The sharp lines in her face hardened as the poison tickled her fingertips, and her dark, colorless eyes probed her surroundings.

Her body moved, lithe and smooth, as she rose to her feet with no effort. It was as if it required no effort of muscle or strength. She simply floated to a standing position, more graceful than a cat. "What am I?" she breathed out loud, her voice coming out in a hoarse and dangerous rasp, belying the pure perfection in the movement of her body.

"You are of the Nosophori," a voice sounded, from all around her, consuming and ambushing.

"Who am I?"

There was a pause as she waited for the answer. "You are Nicole."

She needed no other information than that. As she stepped forward, each movement pristinely perfect yet dangerous, like the writhing dance of a cobra, her procession was halted by a crumbled body in her path. "What is that?" she asked, looking at the softly curving body, colorful hair and gray skin.

"That is evil."

The power of suggestion on this fresh mind was strong. She reached out, sensitive hands feeling nothing from the listless form, yet at the same time, a strange sense of… something… possibly. She hissed backing away, shoulders drawn up in defense.

This was when Nicole first learned what evil was. As she hurried away, the strange, stinging pain still inching its way along her body, she understood. Those things that felt familiar, as if, at a time, she might have known what they were. Those were evil.

And of course, anything that was evil should be destroyed.

"Nyx!" came a shout behind her. She turned, blood surging in her veins at the name, eyes narrowing at the speaker who said it.

He looked like her, Nosophorus, except, there was something different. His eyes. They were not like hers. They reminded her of something.

She recalled what such deja vu was.

She attacked, a blood curdling cry of pent up pain and rage escaping her lungs as she rushed forward, fists barred, to the dumbstruck Alexander.

* * *

Violet's heart gave a painful start as her eyes followed Alexander's shocked gaze. Her mind didn't register fear for the sudden shock of the rampaging Nosophorus coming in their direction. She sidled in front of Alexander quickly, throwing her hands in front of her.

Her goal was to use the same seamlessly clean theory she had for  
Liam to get the creature to stop moving towards her. As her hard-angled body was met an equally tall and lethal form, it was not because her powers didn't work. She could still feel the elegant hypothesis of space and time spinning around in her head, wanting to be used. She just _couldn't _use it. This creature was stopping her.

Stunned, Violet's back hit the ground, the top of her head hitting the hard marble floor, the female Nosophorus poised on top of her, long pale hands tightly squeezing her slender neck. Violet choked and sputtered, feet digging into the ground for leverage, fingernails digging fruitlessly into the soft flesh of her wrist.

"Who are you," the girl hissed, her head tilting to the side in a sadistically inquisitive manner.

"Nyx, stop it!" Alexander yelped, panicked.

Her head jerked up towards him at the sound of the name and a guttural snarl, far more animalistic than any sound a human voice box could omit, was ripped from her chest. Lithely, she sprung off Violet's awkwardly sprawled body, leaping towards Alexander. "What did you call me?" she hissed, venomously.

"What have they done to you?" Alexander said, a deep look of disgust mixed with guilt littering his face.

"Silence!" she roared, her hand whipping out to close around his throat. Alexander gulped, eyes wide with shock.

"Violet," Isabel whispered, cursing herself that in her situation, she hadn't cared to look through all the details. Nyx might be dead, but they had all learned what happened when a Mythic died. She was a Nosophorus now, with no memory of her past life. She felt certain that, once back in Haven during regular time, she could be reminded of it. Obviously it was possible because David (and it still hurt to think the name) had begun to regain sketchy memories of his past. "Get us out of here."

Violet shook her head, an idea already sparking into her brain. "We have to find her body." She sprinted down the hall in the direction that Nyx had come from, calling over her shoulder to a flabbergasted Isabel and mildly panicked Alexander, "Keep her busy!"

"No problem," Alexander wheezed, his cheeks turning a lovely shade of red as he gasped for air.

* * *

They had been so close! Just down the hall, barely more than a few hundred feet away, she found Nyx's body. She wasn't sure how much time she had, but didn't want to dawdle around to find out. She reached down and hefted the lifeless form below her, stumbling under the weight. Her anti-gravity wouldn't work on her now that she was no longer alive, and as the blood in her veins stopped moving, settling like miniature barbells in her arms and legs, she became progressively heavier.

A grunt escaped Violet's lips, and at the very same moment, the weight was relieved from off her shoulders. Instead of thankful, Violet felt a surge of fear.

Before her were three Elders, perhaps even the ones she had met before. It would be impossible to determine though, for they all had the same sickeningly sudden movements and wore the same deep hooded robes. The one in the middle, standing slightly in front of the rest, held Nyx's listless body.

"Let her go," Violet ordered. She was surprised when her voice didn't shake.

Violet wasn't even given the chance to blink. Just as she had demanded, they dropped Nyx to the floor, ensnaring her in her arms just as her friend had been. "It was never her we wanted," the Elders said, as one, speaking as if programmed into each other.

She didn't bother struggling. It was already quite obvious that a match of physical strength would go no where. On any other circumstance, she would think that her wit would be astute enough to talk her way out of it, but even that idea was flawed. She had to know how her opponent was thinking to argue against them. With these… things… she wasn't even entirely sure that they were thinking. Alexander had said that these were the Nosophorus who remained buzzy all the time, who didn't even need the necessity of touch to leech the emotions off a victim. Did that mean they were acting primarily on instinct alone?

No, of course not. If they were acting on instinct, they would have taken Violet at the first chance they had gotten. And they didn't. They snatched up Nyx instead, giving the possibility of more victims.

But why?

"If you didn't want her, why did you kill her?" Violet asked, feeling the arms she was trapped in squeeze uncomfortably. She hoped talking would distract them.

"We did not kill her, we set her free."

_Right, of course_, Violet thought, sardonically, still lost. "Then what do you want with me?"

She wasn't entirely sure what had happened. All of a sudden, there was a crash and pain. Splintering, sharp, red pain cutting into her arms and the back of her head. She had been thrown into the window. Though it didn't shatter through, shards still dug into various areas of exposed skin. She sat there, unwilling to move because she was certain that would just make it hurt worse. She swallowed back the grunts of pain and spoke again. "What do you want from me?"

One of them grabbed her shirt, lifting her easily out of the debris, pieces of glass falling around her, jagged drops of rain. Afraid they were about to throw her again, she spoke again. "You didn't want Haven to close, did you?"

Pause. Her feet were on the ground and they were a greater distance away again. This did little to reassure her, for she knew full well they could cross that distance before she could open her mouth to call for help. She decided to keep talking, though she felt like she should sit down. A little dizzy. And pain. Why did bleeding hurt so much? "Haven can never close, we're much too strong. You wanted them to be public. If Mythics are public that means there's more danger to them. More danger means more death. More death means more of us."

They weren't moving. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad, still focusing on remaining in a standing position. Rambling was making her feel a little better though, as is she might actually stand a chance against these creatures, and if she was just smart enough, she could get Nyx's body back into real time, where Hades could reattach her violent and lost soul back with her body.

"Alexander's mission was completely foolproof and failsafe, seeing as the entire object of it _was_ to fail." She waited, a grimace building up despite her best efforts. "That means the only question left is me. Why was I there, and why can't I remember anything? Unless…" A word popped into her head, unbidden, penetrating the red fog of her nauseous pain. Exiled. These Elders were powerful beings. If she had learned something dangerous, and tried to take action against what it was she learned, it was well within the boundaries of their powers to erase her memory and exile her to real time. Had she learned about the Nosophorus ancestry, that they were actually Mythics, and had begun to tell people, the results would have been fatal. The only problem was…

A laugh ripped out of Violet's chest, much to her surprise. Now that she thought of it, it really was quite hysterical. Well, hysterical in a sadistically ironic sense. Or she was going into shock. Either way, laughing didn't seem like a terrible way to die. "I'm not supposed to be able to switch back into Still-time, am I? Alexander could only do it when you gave him the gift to. I should have been stuck in real time."

This time, when she felt one of the Elders grip her shoulders, probably to throw her into another window, or perhaps slam her head into the floor, another set of hands pulled her free, tugging at her waist from behind. Unceremoniously, she was slung over a shoulder (she couldn't be entirely positive of who's) and were speeding, just as fast as an Elder, in the other direction. Beside them, she peered through eyes that were blurred red with stinging blood, to see a shape that looked remarkably like Liam, carrying a body that was shaped strangely like Nyx.

"Violet, get us out of here!"

She had no idea who was talking to her, but she was fairly certain they wanted her to get them out of Still-time. She wanted to leave too, so that was good. She was sick of Still-time.

Several sets of hands, she couldn't really be sure of the exact number, found places on her red and slippery arms and delirious face. "Violet, NOW!"

_Alright, alright_, she wanted to say. People and their bossiness. No respect anymore. None at—

"_VIOLET!_"

She switched back to real time, spinning through the theory almost absent-mindedly. "Happy now?" she muttered, then fainted.

* * *

"Violet? Violet, are you awake yet. Come on, Vi, you need to eat something. Violet?"

Violet groaned, stirring under the functional blankets in the infirmary. "My name's not Violet," she muttered. She wasn't sure how long she had been out, and was still too thick in the grogginess of unconsciousness to know where she was and who was speaking to her.

"Then what is your name?" the annoying person asked.

"Go away," she complained, throwing her arm over her head.

"Okay, Go Away, we need to get some food in you. Epione's already healed your cuts and bruises, but she can't replace blood. You have to eat, or you'll never get your strength back."

Cuts? What was she talking about? She hadn't been cut. She hated pain, had absolutely no tolerance for it. A bad paper cut would make her hyperventilate. She avoided anything that could lead to the ultimate threat of pain… well, except for Nyx, but that was inevitable.

_Nyx_.

"Damn it!" she swore, sitting up fast. The world spun around for a moment, and she had to close her eyes again, putting her head between her knees until the room stopped twirling around her. "Where's Nyx?"

"I'm Nyx, dumb ass," was the speaker's pleasant reply. Violet wrenched her eyes open. Indeed, it was Nyx, but with a few minor changes.

Her hair, freckles, body… they were all the same. The change came in her eyes. It was nothing physical; they were the same brown so dark, they looked almost black. It was what her eyes held that changed. Violet wasn't exactly sure what it was, but found herself shivering.

"What's wrong? Are you cold? Do you want me get another blanket?"

Violet wasn't delirious enough to not raise her eyebrows. "What, Florence Nightingale?"

Nyx shrugged, though she seemed lightly embarrassed. "Seems like the least I can do, when you were the one who figured out how to bring me back."

Violet cringed at the memory. She hated pain. She eyes her arms and made a face at the marks that laced up and down them. She hated scars, too.

"There are more on your back and shoulders, and a nice one on the back of your head," Nyx said, calmly, that same disturbingly steady look in her eyes. Violet suddenly understood what it was. Nyx had already died—there was nothing left that could possibly frighten her anymore. She was one without fear. "As long as you don't feel the need to shave your head, you won't be able to see that one," Nyx continued, oblivious to Violet's scrutiny.

"You changed," Violet accused, ignoring her.

"So did you," Nyx replied.

* * *

"You pulled Nyx out of there," Alexander said, to Liam. They were sitting in the student café, Liam munching on his fourth piece of cheesecake. It would take him a while to get over the desire to leech, and until then he masked the desire with an overfull stomach. "I guess I owe you for that." Alexander was uncomfortable with Liam. He doubted there would be any fuzzy bonds of friendship between them.

Liam shook his head, licking the strawberry topping off his lips. "It means we're even."

"Who was the other one? Who carried Violet?" Alexander asked.

Liam shook his head. "No idea. He was powerful though, like an Elder without the freakiness. He unfroze me then lent me his speed. It was the only way we got out."

Alexander nodded, deep in thought. "What will you do now?"

Liam shrugged. "I'll see how this real time works for me for a little while, but eventually I have to go back to Still-time. They need to know to stop leeching."

"You're a fugitive there," Alexander pointed out.

Again, Liam gave a shrug. "Sacrifices, sacrifices," was his only reply.

* * *

Isabel was in her office, sitting on the bay window and looking out on the courtyard. "This school will go on, no matter what," Isabel said, out loud. "Perhaps it's a good thing the world knows what we are now, that everyone knows that Mythics are real. It will give them a chance to come to us and learn." She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the cool glass, feeling very old, and very tired.

A warm hand cupped the back of her neck, warming her down to the spine. "They're never going to be the same, Violet, Nyx and Alexander," David said. "This has changed them too much."

Isabel smiled, ruefully, knowing how much that was true. Nyx would probably fear touch for the rest of her life, except for from Violet. Violet, who had gone through hell and back to save her, was the only one she allowed into her personal space. Even after the endeavors they had gone through together, she still winced whenever Alexander came too close. It would take a long time for him to regain her trust.

Liam, the poor kid, was even more lost than when he started. The entire reality he had always taken for granted had been ripped away from him. Unlike Alexander, who had searched for the answers himself, Liam just kept getting beaten with them, like projectile stones of information. It was a wonder he hadn't crumbled yet. As it was, Isabel had caught him a few times, gazing emptily into the distance, looking more lost and alone than anyone she had ever seen.

She knew her students well, sometimes better than they knew themselves, and had a strong guess that Violet would opt to go back to Still-time eventually. Haven would always be her home, but she saw a mission in Still-time. She would reclaim the effort that got her exiled here in the first place. Making people remember what they were, who they had been, no doubt using her astronomical gift in mathematics to succeed in it.

Even she had changed, Isabel decided opening her eyes to steal a look at the person who had, at once, been David. The only thing that remained constant in her life was that she would remain the principal of this school, alongside two of the greatest friends anyone could have. David, he was a question, a variable. She refused to fool herself into thinking to love him. This was not the same person she remembered. She had to remember that.

"Isabel?" David inquired, and she realized he was waiting for a reply.

"Everything changes, David. It reminds us that we're human."

**Okay, so for the record, I kinda suck at endings. And I couldn't cheat and make this a cliffie, since its the last in the trilogy. It requires some sort of definitive completion. So... if you notice a conflict that I didn't resolve, questions that didn't get answered, and if that last line is too cheesy (I'm not really sure. Is it a cliche or isn't it?) LET ME KNOW! **

**Thanks! **


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